


The Silenced Siren

by Flantastic



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Capture, Experiments, M/M, Mentions of PTSD, Nightmares, Sirens, mer!Q, merman au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-07 10:00:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13432335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flantastic/pseuds/Flantastic
Summary: Two years after a horrific encounter with a shoal of Sirens, ex-Navy diver James Bond is offered a job by Major Boothroyd, the scientist who is trying to completely wipe them out.  It's seems too good to be true that the menace that destroyed James's career will be destroyed in turn but when James meets Boothroyd's captive Siren, he realises that nothing is as simple as he thought.





	1. Into The Depths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RomancebyFaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RomancebyFaye/gifts).



> Here is my contribution to this year's 00Q Reverse Big Bang.
> 
> I chose 'The Silenced Siren' by @RomanceByFaye as my wonderful inspiration. How could I not? That lovely little forlorn Siren reaching out to James? My fic bunnies went into overdrive!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**_Prologue_ **

James Bond swam silently.

The water was cool but clear and on any another occasion he might have taken great pleasure in just wearing his trunks and mask to free-dive down to the submerged wreck that he knew to be just below them.  It would be divine to swim amongst the brightly coloured fish in the dappled half-light of the early morning. He wasn’t there for pleasure though. He was there on a mission, kitted out in a thick, reinforced wetsuit and armed to the hilt.  He was ready to fight.  His whole team of elite Special Boat Service divers were.

He’d joined the Royal Navy as a cadet and had immediately shown an aptitude for diving that had caught the interest of the SBS.  He’d undergone an intensive, brutal training course that had involved learning about the use and disarmament of underwater ordnance.  He’d worked with some brilliant men and women over the course of his career and he’d commanded his present team for five years.  They worked well together.  They were almost like family, ready to take on any situation.

Sea mines and underwater booby traps were their usual business but they were sometimes called upon to deal with some of the less desirable creatures that lurked beneath the surface of the world’s bodies of water as well.  In his career James had seen it all.  Taniwha down in New Zealand, Selkies in Southern Ireland.  They’d once been called in to help the American Navy deal with a Kraken, the Japanese government to deal with a shoal of Ikuchi who were interfering with the local fishermen.  His favourite memory was of the time he and his team was sent to assist in the examination of the Loch Ness Monster’s clutch of newly-hatched offspring.  It had been the first time for over two-hundred years that she’d lain and it had been his team’s responsibility to keep her distracted with flares and underwater grenades placed carefully away from her so as not to hurt her while the excited groundskeepers gave her young brood a check-up.

Now this.  Probably one of the most dangerous missions they’d ever been ordered to undertake.

The HMS Dauntless was a Royal Navy destroyer, deployed as part of an anti-piracy mission off the coast of northwest Africa.  She’d been found drifting a few days before.  All of her crew had disappeared, well over a hundred men and women.  All that had been left were the prisoners that the ship had been transporting to a holding facility in Gibraltar.  There had been twenty in all and of those, only three had survived, one in each of the ship’s large cells.  The dead all appeared to have been victims of their cell-mates’ violence and the survivors were, to a man, screaming and raving.  Bloody and bruised, they had apparently been the victors in a vain, violent attempt to escape from their cells.  The team that found them had been unable to understand anything that they babbled hysterically apart from one word;

_Sirens._

Judging by the ship’s logs and the last transmissions received from them, the Dauntless had been passing a small chain of previously thought to be uninhabited islands near to Madeira, on its way north, when the Sirens had struck.  The crew had apparently, to a person, jumped ship to get nearer to them, lured to a certain death, while the captives had been driven insane by the Siren’s alluring song.  James and his team had moored their small own vessel a mile away from the point of the last transmission, having been given the mission of going to the spot that the Dauntless lost communications to try to hunt down the troublesome creatures that had attacked it.

Of all the sea creatures that the navies of the world faced, Sirens were the deadliest.  They were cunning and vicious.  Surprisingly though, very little was known about them other than that.  They seemed to be found in the water near to islands which indicated that they might spend at least some of the time on dry land but no one had ever seen them there.  Previous attempts to track down shoals of them had largely ended in failure.  They seemed to know when humans were approaching, their sea-craft acting like beacons, drawing the menace in like moths to a flame.

James and his team had been called in as they were the best at what they did.  All six of them were exceptional swimmers.  It had been supposed that if the team swam the final distance to the Dauntless’ last known position then the Sirens, if indeed they were still in the area, wouldn’t hear them coming.

James had never come across Sirens in the flesh before but he’d been well-trained on their known method of attack.  They all had, it had been part of everyone’s basic training when they first joined the SBS.  Under the hoods of their wetsuits he and his team all wore earplugs designed to block-out the effects of the creatures’ songs.  As an aid to communication, they had all been taught sign language as a basic skill and were encouraged to use it regularly to maintain their fluency in it.

There was a flash of white to the left of him and James could see that Alec Trevelyan had taken off his gloves to signal him.  In the low light of the waning moon he read his simple message.

_We are here.  Island dead ahead.  900 yards._

James nodded and Alec slipped his glove back on.  He glanced around himself to make sure that the rest of his six-person team was in position and then gave the signal to dive.  He jackknifed and dove down himself feeling the frisson of excitement that he always felt when they tackled a dangerous situation.  This was what he was good at.  What he’d been trained for.  To embrace the threat under the waves.  It was James and his team’s mission to positively locate the Siren’s lair and then report back to the Admiralty.  A Sea King plane, armed with missiles, would do the rest.

They swam the rest of the way underwater and then James signaled a halt when they were 100 yards off-shore.  Slowly he broke the surface again.  He could see the island just ahead.  He gave the signal for his team to follow suit and they came up beside him.  As each appeared he silently made rollcall.

_Boon_

_Manning_

_Davies_

_Lewis_

_Trevelyan._

Trevelyan?

James frowned as he caught sight of Alec’s blond hair.  What the hell was he doing with his hood down?  He was about to swim over to him when he saw it.  Another head just behind Alec’s.  James reached for his harpoon at the exact moment that he himself was grabbed from behind.  He cried out, his teeth still clamped around his regulator as he tried to twist.  His own hood was ripped off him as a vice-like grip clamped down on his bicep.  He looked over his shoulder, his eyes widening in horror as he saw the green-gold eyes of a Siren staring back at him.  They had been ambushed.  Before he could process what was happening the creature reached into his left ear and deftly pulled out his earplug.

“No!”  James pleaded as he heard the creature’s soothing lullaby begin.  The regulator fell from his lips as he relaxed.  “No please…”  He added but even to his own ears there was no defiance in his voice any more.

He wondered what he’d been so worried about.  The creature was beautiful.  His skin was like alabaster, pale with an almost greenish hue.  He had long dark hair and James could see with a disconnected kind of joy that he had tiny seashells woven into it.  James forgot about his harpoon and let go of it so he could reach out to touch the creature’s hair instead.  He sighed when he realised how soft it was, the wet tendrils seeming to curl around his fingers like an octopus’s tentacles.  The creature laughed, opening its mouth to reveal a double row of shark-like teeth which flashed white in the morning light.

James realised that he felt warm and comfortable in its arms, despite being surrounded by the cool water.  As the creature continued to croon James felt his cock get hard and he used the hand not buried in the creature’s hair to start pulling at the zipper on his wetsuit.  He’d always considered himself to be straight but it didn’t seem to matter that his captor was male, he simply wanted to be naked for him to show him how turned on he was.

The creature noticed what James was doing and grinned.  It knocked James’s hand out of the way and deftly un-buckled the harness which held his scuba gear in place before grabbing the zipper and slowly pulling it down.  James ran his hands over the creature’s thin chest, marveling at its svelte beauty as he was stripped.   He brushed his fingers over its nipples and its laughter interrupted its own song again as James suddenly shuddered and came, flooding the crotch of his wetsuit with warm semen.  James’s head lolled back and the creature pushed his wetsuit off one shoulder to mouth at his neck, still humming intoxicatingly.  James shivered as he felt its sharp teeth scrape over the skin of his throat and in the far reaches of his consciousness he realised that this was it.  This was the moment of his death.

It was sublime but just as the creature’s teeth began to sink into his flesh there was an ear-shatteringly loud explosion…

 

~00Q~

 

James stepped out of the shower and picked up a soft, pristine white towel.  He wrapped it around himself before going to the sink and picking up his shaving brush.  There was no mirror in the room, or, indeed, anywhere in his flat.  The simple fact was that, since the incident that had almost killed him and ruined his Navel career in the process, he didn’t use mirrors at all.  He quickly lathered up his brush and then smeared shaving suds all over his cheeks, chin and neck.  It had taken a while (and more than a few nicks) for James to get used to using a cut-throat razor without a mirror.  He’d especially struggled with the area at the base of his throat where the Siren’s fangs had torn into his skin but with perseverance he’d largely gotten the hang of it.   The occasional cut that he still got was a small price to pay to avoid seeing the scars which covered the side of his neck… and to avoid being reminded.

It had been Helen Boon who’d saved them.  The woman had managed to fend off the Siren attacking her for a few precious seconds.  It had been just long enough for her to pull out and activate an aquatic hand grenade.   Boon had still been holding it when it detonated, killing both herself and her attacker and deafening James in his left ear in the process.  It had interrupted the song of the Siren who was attacking James and brought James back to his senses enough to give him the edge he needed.  He’d fought back furiously, killing the creature that had gripped him and helping his team to drive off four of the remaining Sirens, saving them all...  

No, not all.  He’d been unable to help Alec.  His second-in-command – his best friend - had been carried off and no trace of him ever found.

That had been a little over two years before.  When it became apparent that the explosion had permanently deafened James in his left ear he’d been discharged from the Navy on medical grounds.  They gave him a gallantry award and called him a hero.  He didn’t feel that way though and he’d struggled with nightmares and PTSD.  He’d seen a score of therapists and nothing had helped until one suggested that he try art as an outlet.  Now, although everything about James and the home he lived in was measured and controlled he had one room that was a riot of colour.  Canvasses were stacked up, every available surface hidden under oils and acrylics, pastels and pencils.  When things got too much for him, he simply retreated from the world and painted.

He finished shaving and cleaned his teeth.  He used the towel the dry off and then hung it neatly over the rack on the back of the door, making sure it was perfectly level.  Glancing back to see that everything else was neat and tidy he headed for the bedroom.  Making his way back up the hallway he paused at the door to his art room.  He kept it closed but he lingered for a moment, resting his hand on the woodwork.  He looked up through the hall window and saw that the sun was shining and the sky was blue.  He smiled.  Perhaps he wouldn’t need to paint today.  Perhaps he could go out for a long walk and get himself some fresh air instead.

He quickly dressed and then went to the kitchen.  He’d already had his breakfast but there was still half a pot of coffee to be drunk and the Daily Telegraph’s crossword to complete.  He’d barely settled himself with a fresh mug though, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose, when his mobile phone rang.

He put down his pen and picked it up.  Unknown number.  Frowning, he accepted the call.

“Hello?”

A rather well-spoken man responded.

_“Commander James Bond?”_

“No.” He snapped.  He killed the call and put down the handset.

As James expected, a few seconds later the phone rang again.  He sighed and answer again.

“What do you want?”

 _“_ _Mister_ _James Bond?”_ The same man said, emphasizing the first word. _“You’re a hard man to track down.”_

“That is the general idea.”  James responded coolly.

_“My name is Boothroyd.  I wonder if we might be able to meet up.  I have an employment opportunity for you.”_

“Not interested.”

The man laughed.

_“I haven’t even told you what it is yet.”_

“You managed to find my mobile phone number.” James said flatly.  “That means that you’ve tracked down at least one of my old team.  Which one was it?  Lewis?  Manning?  It doesn’t matter.  Not one of them would have _given_ you my number which means you’ve either stolen one of their phones, hacked them or have them under surveillance.  In any case that tells me you are part of some kind of large organisation, so which one is it?  The military?  MI5?”

There was a chuckle down the line.

_“MI6 actually.  I work for a research facility associated with them which is located on Dartmoor in Devon.  It’s called Hound Tor Base.”_

“Never heard of it.”

 _“Well that’s a relief.  It_ _is_ _top secret after all...”_

“So why phone me up and tell me about it?” James asked, frowning.

 _“Because I want you to come and work for us.”_ The man replied.

“Really?  I’d hardly be much use to you in a top-secret facility in the middle of Dartmoor.” James mused.  “I’m a diver by trade.”

_“A trade which you haven’t plied for two years now.”_

James was silent as a prickle of irritation crawled over his skin.  He said nothing.

 _“You were a damn fine diver.”_ Boothroyd continued. _“The best, I heard.”_

There was another pause and then James sighed.

“Alright, I’ll bite.  Why do you need me?”

_“We have a captive Siren and we need your assistance in handling it.”_

“You’ve got to be fucking joking me!”  James exclaimed.  “Why in hell’s name would I ever willingly walk into somewhere knowing that one of those… _things_ was in there?”

_“Because what we’re doing… it’s a noble cause.  We’re looking for a way to wipe them out.  Siren attacks are on the up.  I have been asked to develop a weapon to use against them.”_

“No.”

_“Mr Bond…”_

“NO!” James abruptly stood up, the wooden chair that he’d been sitting on clattered to the floor but he paid it no attention.  He suddenly felt hot and almost panicked.  He took a deep breath. “No.” He repeated in a quieter voice.  “I can’t.”  He heard a sigh down the line.

_“Very well Mr. Bond. I shan’t press the issue if your mind is made up.    If you change your mind however, call this number back.  So sorry to have disturbed you.”_

The line went dead and for a split-second James thought he was going to hurl his phone at the wall opposite him.  He mentally shook himself and took a deep breath.  Instead he carefully placed it on the table with trembling hands.  He stood and stared at it, all his plans for the day gone.  He remained there, motionless, for several minutes before calmly turning around and going into his art room.

 

~00Q~

 

_The water was warm, the temperature of blood.  James was floating, his legs felt sluggish and he was unable to kick out with any strength.  There were Sirens all around him, he was sure of it.  His panic rose as he started to thrash, desperate to swim away.  No.  They were going to get him.  He shouldn’t have come.  Oh God, he shouldn’t have come.  All his men were dead and he shouldn’t have come.  Just as his terror reached fever pitch the Siren’s song began, sweet and beguiling.  James tried to swim but he was paralyzed by fear.  He panicked as the soothing calm he remembered feeling at their call failed to materialise.  He felt their hands on him and he was horrified.  Touching, stroking, caressing hands gripped him and he realised for the first time that he was naked.  He was exposed.  He felt cool breath on the back of his neck, a cold hand on his cock and he sobbed as he fought to get free, twisting and writhing, gasping as he tried to muster enough breath to…_

James sat bolt upright in bed, his own bellow of utter terror waking him.  He leapt out of bed and ran to the corner of the room before he really knew what he was doing.  He crashed into the wall, narrowly avoiding breaking his nose.  Pressing himself up against the wall he shivered in terror.  His knees buckled and he collapsed into a heap, sliding down the wall until his arse hit the floor with an inelegant bump.  He wiped a trembling hand over his face and shivered, the horror of his dream still clinging to him.  How many times had he had dreams like it?  A hundred?  A thousand?    He wrapped his arms around himself and began to rock back and forward, trying to calm down.

“I can’t do this anymore.”  James whispered to himself.  “Jesus fuck.  I just can’t.”

He didn’t know how much time passed but once he had composed himself enough he crawled back to his bed and took his phone down off the bedside table.  He slumped on the floor, his back to the bed, as he dialed the last number to ring him.  After a few rings it was answered.

_“Bond?  Is that you? What time is it?”_

“Promise me that you’re planning to wipe them out.”

_“I… what?”_

“Promise me you’re going to slaughter every last one of those things.”

_“I promise but…”_

“Then I accept your offer of employment.”  James said curtly and hung up.  He placed the phone on the floor beside him and rested his head on his knees.

He stayed that way until dawn.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. The Pit

 

 

“There is a staff of twenty people working in this facility,” Boothroyd said “but only five of us, including yourself, know that we actually have one of the creatures here.”

James sat in Boothroyd’s office, the man’s desk between them, as he explained the set-up.  The Hound Tor facility was a strange place.  Located on the edge of Dartmoor, it looked like a modern farm building from the outside.  Inside, it housed a half-dozen laboratories where the day-staff worked on the samples taken from the creature.  At the back of the building, hidden away in a restricted area, was the entrance to a lift which went down over forty feet.  The facility had been built in the fifties and had originally been designed as a nuclear shelter.  The whole surrounding area sat on granite and back in the day it had been decided that it was the ideal place to provide emergency protection for the top brass from the nearby Devonport Naval Base in Plymouth.

It must have been some undertaking to bore down so far into solid rock, James mused as Boothroyd talked.   Movement outside caught his eye and he watched as a blackbird landed on the bare tree branches of the tree just outside the window.  The ground banked up and away from the building sharply, leading to the stony outcrop that gave the area its name.  Realising he was allowing himself to become distracted, James refocused on what Boothroyd was saying.

“… as far as the laboratory staff are concerned, there is no reason for a Royal Navy diver to be employed here so officially your role will be of Head of Security.  In actual fact, you will be… well.  Why don’t I show you?”

Boothroyd got up to leave the room and James followed, a feeling of unease washing over him.  This was the part he had been dreading.  It had been almost a month since James had rung Boothroyd in the middle of the night and accepted the job.  A month of wondering if he was doing the right thing.  The idea of being in the same room as a Siren still terrified him but the lure of being part of something that would see them eradicated?  That was just too tempting.

James had met with Boothroyd twice before.  Each time James had paid cash to purchase train tickets from his home in Clifton, just outside the centre of Bristol.  When he left the Navy he had taken great pains to hide himself away.  Years of professional secrecy while working for the SBS morphed after the attack into a mania for privacy that would have made his last psychiatrist, Doctor Hubbox, raise an eyebrow.  His bank account was at a London branch.  His flat had been purchased under an assumed name and he’d paid his bills using the cash that he withdrew from banks all over the country on the monthly trips that he made.  He was sure that he couldn’t be found but prior to starting the job he had destroyed his phone and bought a new one with a pay-as-you-go sim just to be sure that they couldn’t track him through it.  He wasn’t sure who ‘they’ were and he was paranoid enough not to ever want to.

They reached the lift and Boothroyd punched in a passcode.  Almost unconsciously James memorised it.

75274007

The fact that his old call sign, 007, was part of the code seemed to leap out at him.  He followed Boothroyd into the lift and set his jaw, gritting his teeth as the door closed and they started to descend.  After a few seconds Boothroyd leant over and pressed a button, stopping the lift in its tracks.

“There are no microphones in here.  I have my back to the only camera.  I need to tell you something and it must go no further.” He said as he turned to face James.

James looked at him quizzically.

“There are two entrances to ‘The Pit’, as the staff here have nicknamed it.” Boothroyd said quietly. “This lift and a tunnel which ends in the back of a small cave system half a mile from here.  There’s a blast door at the end and I’m not sure it had been opened for decades before the incident earlier this year.”

“Incident?”

“We had a Siren that escaped.  Hence the increased security measures now.”

“How in the hell?” James said.  As far as he knew, Sirens were essentially fish.  He’d seen the gills in the neck of the one that attacked him.  How one could escape through either route…

Boothroyd scowled as he seemed to read James’ mind.

“I don’t know but I think it must have been helped.   My theory is that it used its song to hypnotise one of the staff here.  There was a security guard.  We caught him on camera acting suspiciously.  He swore blind he hadn't been involved though.  Even passed a polygraph test.  The man didn’t have a clue what he’d done.”

“Jesus…”  James’s skin crawled at the thought.

“Since the incident I’ve taken steps to replace everyone who ever came into contact with one of the creatures and to vet all the new staff thoroughly myself.  I also came up with a device which effectively silences the damn things.  Listen Bond, I know you loathe the creatures almost as much as I do so I’m pretty sure  I can rely on you.  I read the psych reports that the Navy doctors wrote prior to your dismissal.  I knew you would be the ideal man to assist me.  Our work was being compromised and that must not be allowed to continue.  I need you on my side.  Can I trust you?”

James nodded as Boothroyd restarted the lift and they started their descent once more.

The lift finally stopped and the door opened out onto a surprisingly well-lit room.   James followed Boothroyd out and they were greeted by a friendly-looking man who stood up as soon as he saw them.  He walked around his desk and offered James his hand.

“This is our research assistant, Bill Tanner.  Bill, this is our new security guard.”

“How do you do?”  Bill smiled as James took his hand and shook it. “You must be Commander Bond.”

James shook his head.

“James, please.”

“Bill.”  Tanner responded with a smile.  “Has Boothroyd filled you in with what we get up to down here?

“Not exactly, no.”

“That’s probably a good thing.” Tanner said.  “it’s not exactly something that you’d want to write home to your mum about.  Even if it wasn’t highly classified…”

“Now, now Billy.”  Boothroyd scolded him.  “What we do here has the potential to benefit the whole human race.  You know that.  Where’s Eve?  I want her to meet Bond.”

Billy nodded towards the door behind him.

“She’s in the tank room.”

“Excellent.  Then you can meet her and see our specimen at the same time.”  Boothroyd said to James.  “Eve Moneypenny really was an excellent find.  After the debacle of the Siren escaping I had all the senior staff that worked here removed.  I wasn’t sure I could trust any of them anymore.  I found both Eve and Bill working at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth.  She’s a brilliant scientist, despite her disability.”

“Disability?”

“More of a condition really.”  Bill interjected, “She suffers from poor eyesight caused by extreme photosensitivity.  It impacted her studies while at university but she has found ways of getting around it.  She wears glasses to assuage the condition and she copes remarkably well.  Even holds a driving license although bright sunny days can cause her problems…”

James stopped listening as the they entered the next room.  It was considerably dimmer then the one that they’d just left.  In front of him he saw a woman sitting on the floor.  In front of her an enormous glass wall separated them from a huge tank filled in water.  There was a large sign at the top which read ‘SPECIES: SIREN’ and underneath that, ‘HIGH INTELLIGENCE.  DO NOT REMOVE COLLAR’.

The creature within the tank was barely visible for a second before it caught sight of the men.  In a flash of bright, multicoloured fins it was gone, cowering in the dark recess of the far-side of the tank. The woman appeared to have been signing to it. James caught sight of her word ‘trust’ before it skittered away.  She turned and saw the men before turning back and signing;

_It’s the new security guard.  Don’t be scared._

The thing shook its head and continued to press itself against the back wall of the tank.  With a sigh Eve stood and turned to greet the men.

“Eve, this is James Bond.”

“Good morning Miss Moneypenny.” James said with a smile.  She took his hand and for a moment he forgot all about the horror in the tank.  She was beautiful.  She was dressed demurely in a tweed dress topped off with a pristine white lab coat but James could see that she had a gorgeous figure.  She had a wide, easy smile and the glasses she wore with their unusual lilac-tinted lenses only served to accent her face.

“Eve, please.”

“James.”

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.  Tanner, if you could come back in a few minutes to show James the control room.  I'd like to quickly discuss something with you please....”

“Yes Sir.”

The men left and Eve walked back towards the tank.

“Come on then.  Come and meet Q.”  She gestured to the creature which remained huddled, his back half-turned to them.

James stood stock still, his eyes drawn to the thing in the tank.  It was watching him over it’s shoulder, it’s long tail twitching nervously.  Even in the half-light of the room he could see the way it’s eyes glittered with gold.  It’s arms were wrapped around itself and James felt a wave of nausea rise up as he took in its long claws and remembered the feel of his attacker’s talons scraping over his naked skin and…

“James?  Are you OK?”  James blinked and suddenly saw that Eve was at his side, looking up at him, concern on her face.  He swallowed hard and was about to make his excuses and run when she spoke again.  “Q won’t hurt you, you know.  Even if he could get through the security around his tank…”

James shivered and made an effort to pull himself together.

“Q?”  He finally croaked out.

Eve smiled again and James felt some of the tension loosen in his chest.

“That’s what we call him.  Come on.”

She tugged on his wrist and he let her guide him to the spot where she’d been sitting.  The creature within suddenly shifted, obviously scared.  Eve immediately pressed her hand to the glass and then signed;

_Calm down.  He’s not here to hurt you._

“It understands sign language?”  James asked.

“ _He_ does.”  Eve said, gently emphasising the first word as if admonishing James.  “I taught him.  Being able to talk helps to calm him.”

“Why bother?”

“Because he’s easier to handle that way.”  She replied, a hint of irritation in her voice.  “Because it’s preferable to me to try to communicate with him rather than treat him like a wild animal who has to be brutalised to be subdued.” She finished hotly.

“He _is_ a wild animal though.”  James said, confused by her sudden aggression.  “They all are.  They need to be culled.  Dissected.  Not chatted to.”

“Oh, I can see why Boothroyd picked you!”  Eve said scornfully, suddenly throwing her hands up in the air.  “Let me guess.  You’ve come across them in the wild?  You were what?  Lured?  Attacked by Sirens?  So now you think they’re all the same!”  At that moment Tanner wandered back in and she whirled around to face him.  “Billy!  There you are.  Boothroyd’s sent us another ignorant pig!  Take him to his office.”  She faced James, her shoulders back as she glared at him.  “Get the hell out of my lab Bond.”

She turned back to the tank as if dismissing them and placed her hand on the glass again.  James and Bill made a hasty retreat.

“Sorry about that mate.” Billy said as he led James up another faceless corridor. “Eve’s rather protective of our charges and the last security guard we had was a right bastard towards them.  Under all that bark she’s got a heart of gold though.  I’ll have a word with her when we get home later, see if I can’t get her to give you a second chance.”

“You’re a couple?”  James asked.  He had noticed that Bill wore a wedding ring but even so...  If he was honest he was surprised.  Tanner wasn’t the ugliest of men but compared to Eve’s beauty he hardly registered.

“Since I was sixteen.”  Tanner smiled.  “I know it looks as if I’m punching well above my own weight…”

James chuckled, suddenly embarrassed to have been so judgemental.

“It never even crossed my mind.”

“I’ll bet.”  Tanner said dryly.  They reached a door which had a small plaque with CCTV etched on it.  “This is where you’ll spend most of your time but I want to show you something else before we settle you in.”  There was a door at the end of the corridor which led to a flight of stairs leading up.  There was a landing halfway up, turning them back on themselves.  As they climbed Tanner spoke again.  “Ever since one of our subjects escaped Boothroyd had been paranoid.  He’s upped the security.”  Tanner placed his hand on a scanner set into the wall at the top of the stairs and after a beat the door ahead of them opened.

“Only Boothroyd, Eve and myself can open this door at the moment. I’d imagine Boothroyd will be giving you clearance in good time though.”

The room James found himself in was cavernous.  Ornate wood panels lined the walls and James wondered if this was once the hub of the old bomb-shelter.  The place that all the higher-ups would come to plan and scheme until the threat had passed.  Now though the floor consisted of metal grating, in the middle of which sat a large hatch, around two meters in diameter.  James peered down through the grating and his skin crawled as he realised that they were directly over the Siren’s tank.

“About once a week Q needs to be subdued. The chain around his wrist is reeled in, pulling him to the surface and then he needs to be held.”

“What happens to it then?”

“Then Boothroyd and his assistant do what they need to do.  Take samples, inject him with things…”

“What things?”

“Like I said, it’s better if you don’t know.  Boothroyd wants you to be in here and armed, ready to dive, whenever they work on him from now on.  Q can get a little feisty and he’s threatened to bite or drag Boothroyd into the tank more than once…  He’s alright with Susan though.”

“Susan?”

“Doctor Conroy.  She’s Boothroyd’s right hand woman.”

“The other person who knows that the creature is here.” James mused.  Tanner looked blank.  “Boothroyd said five people knew it was here.” James explained.  “Me, you, Boothroyd and Eve.  I was wondering who the fifth was.”

“Oh, I see.”  Bill said.  “Yeah, that’s right.  We feed Q through here.”  He walked over to the main hatch and crouched down.  Set into it James could see that there was a smaller access hatch, maybe twenty centimetres from side to side.  He opened it and then reached into his pocket, pulling out a Snickers bar.  He unwrapped it and placed it on the side of the opening.  “Come on Q.  Come and get it.”  There was a pause and James instinctively took a step back as the surface of the water broke.  Tanner noticed. “Don’t worry.  The collar stops him from making a sound.  You’re perfectly safe.”

After a moment, a pale webbed hand, slim and delicate, reached up and daintily took the sweet.  Tanner smiled and relocked the hatch.

“Not part of his prescribed diet.  Susan would hit the roof if she knew he was eating that much sugar in one go.”

“So why give it one?” James asked.

“Because he likes them.”  Tanner said with a shrug.

He led James back out of the room.

 

 

 

 

 


	3. The Tank

 

 

James fell into the routine of his new job and the first couple of days passed quickly.  He would arrive at eight o’clock each morning.  After walking around the perimeter of the upper building he would descend in the lift and walk the length of the corridors, the long tunnel that the Siren escaped through included.  Once his patrol was complete he would settle into his little office and randomly study the previous night’s CCTV footage until it was time for him to patrol again.  He carried out four patrols a day and finished at around five o’clock.

On the third day Moneypenny came to see him in his office.  She carried a Tupperware container of home-made shortbread biscuits and two cups of coffee.  He invited her in and offered her a chair.

“I want to apologise for my actions the other day.”  She began after they’ve both sat down.  “I saw that Q was scared of you and I thought you were a threat to him.”

James frowned.

“Oh?  How so?”

She paused as if contemplating his words.

“Have you noticed anything strange since you got here?  A feeling that people have been reading your mind perhaps?  Not the exact words maybe but people guessing the gist of your thoughts?”

James went to say no but something stopped him.  There had been a few occasions.  Boothroyd guessing the meaning behind James’s exclamation in the lift… Tanner realising James thought he was an odd match for Eve… and a couple of other moments since…  Before he could say anything, Eve smiled.

“I thought so.  It’s because of Q.”

“Jesus.  Really?”  James said.  He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of the thing in the tank affecting him in any way.  Moneypenny sighed.

“Blimey James.  You don’t need to have any psychic abilities to see how the idea of that makes your skin crawl.  Please let me explain.  Q has a low-level psychic ability, his kind all do.  The ocean is a big place.  Imagine taking a wrong turn and losing your bearings?  Losing your family?  Mers are pack animals, family is everything to them so they have developed a way to ‘sense’ each other.  In a situation like this, where he isolated from his loved ones, he unconsciously reaches out and it effects the people around him.  When you came into the tank room he was terrified.  I thought it was because he’d sensed the same sort of aggression from you that he’d felt from the last security guard.  I didn’t realise until I spoke to him later that it was because he’d felt such terror from you that it had terrified him in turn.”

James didn’t know what to say.  He felt almost embarrassed at having been so frightened of Q.  He was shaken from his thoughts by Moneypenny leaning forward and touching his knee.

“Will you tell me what happened to you?  Why does he frighten you so badly?”

James hesitated but then he started to talk.

“You were right.  What you said the other day.  I did have an encounter with Sirens… I was on a mission… one of the Navy’s ships had failed to report in…”

He told her the whole story.  She listened intently, allowing him to falteringly tell his tale, not asking questions or jumping in with comments when words failed him.  When he was finished and he reached out to pick up his coffee he noticed that his hand was trembling.

“Did you ever find your friend?” Eve asked quietly.  James shook his head sadly.

“No.  There was never any trace of Alec found.  He was my best friend for twenty years and he was gone in a second… a split second.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m guessing that you don’t want to but I’d like you to come and meet Q again, if you feel up to it..  Boothroyd tells me you’ll be running protection during the weekly tests.  It will go much easier for both of you if you get to know each other a little.”  James was about to argue but she cut him off. “I’m just trying to help, James.”

“Me or the creature?”

“Both of you.”

They finished their drinks and then went to the tank room.  It was still gloomy and James idly wondered if Q preferred it that way.  As they approached the tank Moneypenny waved at it and there was a flash of white from the back corner.  Q was curled up there and looked as if he had been dozing.  She tapped on the glass and he stretched languidly before swimming over to them gracefully.

 _Hello Q_ .  Moneypenny signed.   _I’ve brought someone to see you.  This is James._

Q signed back and James was a little confused by the siren’s response.  It signed _hello_ and then seemed to try to spell Moneypenny’s name but messed it up.  If James had tried to say the word he’d spelt out it would have been closer to _eymorplennay_ than Eve Moneypenny.  He guessed spelling her name was just too complex for it.  After giving Eve a small, nervous smile it’s eyes turned to James, it’s expression wary.  James raised his hands.

_Hello._

The creature’s eyes widened and it suddenly smiled again, grinning this time and revealing rows of sharp teeth.  James shivered but stood his ground as the thing signed back.

_You can talk to me._

James nodded.

_I learned sign language when I was in the Navy._

_And now you work here.  Are you Eve’s friend?_

James hesitated and then nodded again.

_I think so yes._

The creature tilted it’s head as if questioning James’s answer.

_You don’t know her very well yet._

_No._  James replied.   _Not yet._

_You will be her friend.  Everyone is. She’s lovely._

Moneypenny laughed quietly and tapped on the glass again.

_Q._

It grinned at her, looking as if it was laughing back at her.  It suddenly flipped, doing a full circle with a flash of its tail.

_It’s true.  You’re my favourite._

“I’m sorry James,” she said and signed simultaneously.  “Q is a terrible flirt.”

James’s frowned as he tried to equate what he was seeing to what he knew about Sirens.  They were cold-blooded killers of men but this creature… he seemed friendly… not threatening at all.  James shook his head in wonder and took a step towards the glass as he realised he’d just thought of ‘it’ as ‘he’.

Now he was close enough he was able to examine Q’s tank in more detail.  Strong riveted girders held the toughened glass in place.  Inside it was bare and dank.  James didn’t think the murkiness of the water was totally due to the low light though – the water looked _dirty_.

“The filtration system isn’t really up to the job of keeping the tank clean for a full-grown Mer, even one as young as Q.  I keep asking Boothroyd to upgrade it but he won’t listen.”  Eve said.

There it was again, the feeling that Eve had just read his mind.  Ignoring the creeping feeling that it gave him, he looked at Q as he swam to and fro, watching James and Eve with an interested look on his face.  He looked pale and James wasn’t sure if that was normal for the creature.  He had a greenish hue to his extremities - the edges of his gills, the webbing between his fingers, the delicate frills that edged his ears - but even so he looked sickly.  Not surprising if the water wasn’t pure enough for him.  James wondered what he would look like swimming through clear blue water…

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Q swam to the glass and placed one hand flat on it, the other on his heart.  James was taken aback for a moment and he stepped away from him.  He thought he saw a flicker of disappointment in the creature’s eyes but then he tilted his head and smiled again before pushing away from the glass and resuming his ‘pacing’.

“Why do you call him a… what did you call it?”

“A Mer.  Sirens are all basically Mers.  The same way that a Hammerhead is basically a shark.  It’s the name given to the species.”

“How old is he?” He asked, still feeling confused at the creature’s actions..

“Thirty-seven.”  Eve replied.

“That old?”  Q didn’t look thirty-seven, he looked to be in his early twenties at the most.

“Mers live to a much greater age than humans.  In Mer terms, Q is only just out of puberty.  If he were free he would live to be well over a hundred and sixty.”

_If he were free._

He detected the bitterness in Eve’s voice and he turned to face her.

“You disapprove of what’s being done here.”

“I do.”  She stood tall at her words, staring James in the eye, as if challenging him to question her opinion of the treatment of Q.

“Then why do you work here?”

“Because if I wasn’t here, no-one would care.”  She said softly.

She looked at the glass and placed one of her hands flat on it.  Q immediately swam over and mirrored her actions.  James realised then that Q saw this simple gesture as a sign of friendship.  He felt a little ashamed that he’d turned down Q’s attempt to reach out to him.

“And what about Bill?  Does he disapprove?”

“Billy’s like me.  A little less forthright about it maybe.” She hesitated for a moment, as if unsure whether to say what she was thinking. “I met Billy when he was a teenager.”  She said slowly.  “He was on holiday in Jamaica with his family – that’s where I’m from originally – we met and fell in love.  We both loved the ocean and decided to pursue the same field together.  I moved over here to attend the University of Plymouth with him and we’ve worked together pretty much non-stop ever since then.  I can’t imagine ever working anywhere without him.

She smiled and James felt a warmth radiate from her.  It was almost as if he could feel her love for her husband. It was beautiful.

Q must have felt it too.  He stroked his fingers over his side of the glass before signing;

_You are so lucky._

She tilted her head.

_You’ll meet someone one day.  When this is all over._

Q glanced at James and then shook his head, an anguished look on his face.

_I’m going to die in here.  You know I am._

With a flash of bright scales, he swam back to the far corner of the tank and huddled up, his back to them.  Despite Eve tapping on the glass he refused to look at them again.

“Oh fuck it.”  Eve said quietly.  “I didn’t mean to upset him.”

Without thinking James touched the cool glass of the tank.

“Will he be OK?”  Whereas he had fancied he could feel the love radiating from Eve moments earlier, now he could feel the distress coming from the Mer. It was almost heartbreaking.  “Can we do anything to help him?”

Eve seemed to study James for a moment, as if sizing him up.

“We’ll leave him for now.”  She said eventually, “I’ll ask Billy to take him a few of my biscuits later.  See if he can’t cheer him up a bit.  Come on.  Boothroyd doesn’t like us to spend too much time talking to Q.”

She led him out of the room but as James walked through the door he couldn’t resist looking back one last time at the small figure huddled in the corner of the tank.

 

~00Q~

 

The only break to James’s monotonous routine of patrols and CCTV watching came on a Monday morning.  That was the day that Boothroyd and his assistant, Doctor Conroy, took their samples from Q.  

James was well-briefed before his first sample extraction and he had been fully kitted out in a reinforced wetsuit, similar to the one he wore in the Navy.  He had a small scuba set-up which gave him five minutes of air.  He didn’t anticipate needing it though.  He was an expert free-diver and could hold his breath for well over twice that time.

He’d gone into the access room above the tank to see that the main hatch had already been opened.  Conroy, Boothroyd and Tanner were all present.  Moneypenny was positioned in the tank room below, ready to communicate with the Mer through the glass of the tank if needed.  James had only met Doctor Conroy a couple of times but he'd  already decided that he liked her.  She seemed quietly dedicated to her role and spoke of Q with some respect.  It was evident that she didn’t share Boothroyd’s view that Sirens were the scum of the sea as such, more that it was a sad inevitability that they needed to be controlled for the safety of mankind.

The procedure itself was simple enough.  The chain which attached to the metal cuff on Q’s wrist would be wound in, drawing him to the surface of the water.  James was then to grab him and hold him while Conroy took what she needed.  Q’s collar was padlocked but Boothroyd explained that there was an extra loop across the back of it that could be grasped like a handle.  It would help James to control Q and the whole procedure would take less than a minute.  With everyone in position Boothroyd activated the small winch which would pull up Q.

As soon as the chain started to shorten James felt a spike of unease.  For a moment he thought it was his own fear until he saw that Tanner looked uncomfortable too.  He wondered if it was Q’s fear that they were feeling.  He went to the side of the hatch and his suspicion was confirmed.  As Q got closer to the surface James could see the terror in his eyes.  His tail thrashed as if he was a fish caught on a line, fighting the inexorable pull.  James couldn’t understand it.  He must have undergone this procedure countless times.  Surely giving a blood sample wasn’t so bad?  James knelt down, as he’d been instructed and when Q was close enough he reached out and grabbed the back of his collar.

He immediately realised what he’d done.  Q spasmed as James pulled, and James’s head swam as the sensation of Q’s agony flooded him.  He faltered and for a moment he was stunned.  That was all the Mer needed.  He grabbed James’s wrist and twisted, dragging him down into the water.

The water was cool and it brought James back to his senses.  He hadn’t let go of Q’s collar but the Mer still gripped his wrist, preventing him from tugging on it.  James tried to let go, tried to swim away.  Despite overcoming his fear of Q when the walls of the tank separated them, this was different.  This was his worst nightmare come back to haunt him in every way.  He kicked out, his panic rising, using his free hand to push on Q’s chest.  Q was stronger though.  The two of them together struggling must have slackened the chain on Q’s wrist as he was suddenly able to reach out and cup the back of James’s neck.  James was pulled in and he panicked, gasping and almost drawing water down into his lungs as Q…

… kissed him.

James froze, unsure of what was happening.  Suddenly the water in his mouth didn’t matter, his fear didn’t matter, nothing mattered except the beautiful, shyly-smiling Mer in his arms.  He watched as Q tilted his head and ran his fingers over the side of his neck where it met his collar.  Just below his ears he had three gill slits, each delicate and undulating with his ‘breaths’.  The first of them was the longest and James could see now that there was a cruel metal hook running from the collar into it.  Q turned his head the other way and he could see that there was a hook in his first gill there too.  James raised his hand to stroke down over one of the hooks and Q shivered.  The skin at the bottom of the gill looked torn and raw.  This was how they had silenced him.  Controlled him.  James couldn’t imagine how painful it must have been for him.  He raised his hand and cupped Q’s jaw as he finally let go of the collar.  He frowned and mouthed;

_I’m sorry._

And.

_I didn’t know._

Q mouthed back;

_Please don’t hurt me._

It was strange.  Even after losing half of his hearing James had never really mastered the art of lip-reading to help him whenever he misheard people but he understood Q perfectly.  He was confused.

_I don’t understand…_

Q caught up James’s hand and pressed his lips to it.

 _I know,_ he smiled.

There was a tug on Q’s wrist then.  James looked up.  Through the water he could see the shapes of the others as they tried to peer down at them.

_They want to run their tests.  Let them.  Please.  Then they’ll leave you alone._

Q nodded but he looked worried.

_I’d better.  Boothroyd is angry now…_

Before James could ask him what he meant Q suddenly swam up to the surface, moving faster underwater than James would have thought possible, dragging James behind him.  When they broke the surface, Q grabbed the back of James’s scuba harness and thrust him out of the water.  He landed on the metal grating with a grunt.

“What the hell was that all about?”  Boothroyd demanded.

James shook his head and coughed.

“No idea… It's OK though... he didn't hurt me.”

Boothroyd stamped back over to where Q was now meekly holding his arm out to Conroy.  He knelt down and before Q could react he grabbed his collar and yanked on it.

“This is what I employed you to do Bond!   _This_!”  He yanked on Q’s collar viciously.   James shuddered as Q’s pain seemed to wash over him again.  “Restrain the bloody thing!  Restrain it!  Not bloody well go swimming with it.”

Q scrabbled for his neck while still trying to hold his other arm still for Conroy.  She quickly extracted a phial of his blood but by the time she was done he could see a pale greenish liquid seeping from his eyes.  It looked as though Q was crying.

James knelt up and could only watch as Q was manhandled.  He caught his eye and held his gaze as Conroy finished what she was doing.  He’s hated Sirens for so long but Q… he seemed to fly in the face of everything that he knew about them.  He wasn’t some savage beast.  He was young, intelligent.  He was very strong but he’d been gentle with James, his kiss had been soft.  This… what Boothroyd was doing to him… it was wrong.  Cruel even.  He felt his anger rising along with his confusion.  James wondered how many more like Q there were out in the wild.  Had he damned the whole of the species on the actions of a few?

Conroy started to pack away her things, her procedures complete, but Boothroyd held onto Q for a moment longer, shaking him with every viscously spat word.

“Now listen to me you bloody fish!  We’ll have no more of this.  Do you hear me?  One more episode like this and you’re done.  Do you understand me?  Done!”

Q looked if he tried to nod but he was in too much pain so instead he mouthed _‘yes’_.  With a final snarl Boothroyd shoved him back down into the water before going to the door.  The chain to Q’s wrist was extended and Tanner quickly locked down the hatch.  As the final piece slid into position Boothroyd stalked out of the room.

“I wish he wouldn’t do that.”  Conroy said softly as she saw James watching her stand up.  “Testing on live subjects is difficult enough.  There’s no need to be cruel, especially when this one is such a sweet thing.”  She left the room and James quickly fell into step behind her.

“How many have there been in all?”

“You know your alphabet I presume?”

He frowned at her question for a moment before he realised what she was getting at.

“Q is the seventeenth letter of the alphabet…”

“Well done.”

“What happened to the other sixteen?”

She paused and turned to face him.

“With the exception of the one who escaped?  What do you think?” She replied bitterly.

She resumed her walk to the lift, leaving him in stunned silence.

 


	4. Revelation

 

 

James was allowed two days days off every week and Boothroyd had requested that he take them mid-week.  That way James could be at the facility while the majority of the research staff took their weekends off.  He didn’t mind, in fact he prefered it if he was honest.  Crowds unsettled him and if he needed to go into one of the local towns to shop it was easier without the throng of people that they tended to attract at weekends.

Before James left he went down to the tank room to see Q.  Miss Moneypenny was off doing something in the main labs so they were alone when he entered.   James had avoided going near him since the incident the previous Monday but he wasn’t sure why.  Something about Q still disturbed him but a larger part of him was now intrigued. Q was curled up in his usual spot but perked up the moment James walked in. He swam over to the glass and placed his hand on it.  Remembering Eve’s friendly gesture James placed his own up against it.  Q smiled, the same shy little quirk on his lips that he’d had when James was in the tank with him.  He withdrew his hand so that he could sign.

_I’m sorry I got you wet._

James huffed out a laugh.

_I’m not.  It gave me the chance to see what Boothroyd had done to you._

_I scared you. I didn’t mean to._

_I…_ James hesitated and then started again.   _It wasn’t you who scared me.  It was others like you._

Q shook his head.

_No.  Not like me.  The scarring on your throat… I’m guessing you were attacked by Sirens.  I would never act like one of those things._

James was confused, raising his hand to tug his collar further up his neck in a vain attempt to cover the scars before signing;

But y _ou are a Siren._

Q shook his head again, a feeling of irritation emanating from him.

_No. There is a difference._

_I don’t understand._

Q hesitated, as if gathering his thoughts, and then he began to sign;

_There are tribes, human tribes, who live in jungles and hunt animals with spears.  Could you do that?_

James smiled, imagining himself as a modern-day Tarzan, running through the undergrowth in a loincloth.

_I could… I don’t suppose I’d be very good at it though._

Q grinned as if picking up on James’s mental image.

_I am a Mer.  All of us dual natured aquatics are basically Mer.  We can all sing but there are certain tribes who have honed their skills, just like there are human tribes who hunt or farm or raise cattle.  Sirens are tribes that have made their call irresistible to humans.  That’s what you must have encountered.  May I ask, where were you when you attacked?_

_Close to Madeira._

Q nodded.

_I know the tribe who call that area their territory.   Those bastards.  They call themselves Os Condenados.  Decent Mers avoid them._

_The Damned?_

_You speak Portuguese?_

_I speak lots of languages.  You say you know of them.  Where are you from?_

_I was captured in Rosia Bay._

_Gibraltar?_

Q nodded.

_My home is there… or it was.  I don’t suppose I’ll see it again now._

He dropped his head and drifted down to sit on the floor of his tank.  James felt a swell of pity for the young creature.  He suddenly looked so sad, so small against the dingy background of the dirty water.  His iridescent scales looked dull and somehow lifeless.  His shoulders slumped and his hands came up to cover his face.  James crouched down next to him and tapped on the glass.  After a moment, Q looked up at him.

_Don’t lose heart._

Q smiled at him so sadly.

 _I can feel you.  It’s so strange.  I usually only feel so connected to other Mers.  Eymorplennay says…_ He paused as if to correct himself before slowly spelling out, _M-o-n-e-y-p-e-n-n-y_ _says I should try to connect with the people who work here…  but Boothroyd terrifies me… he only wishes me harm… and the last security guard… he was the same… He wasn't like you at all.  You’re different._

_Oh?_

_You still fear me a little bit… what I am… but you’re intrigued by me too.  I can tell.  I won’t hurt you… I would never…_

_I'm beginning to understand that._

_Will you be my friend?_

_If you like.  I don’t think that I can help you though…_ James added sadly.

_Maybe not.  But it would be nice if you could be kind to me for whatever time I have left.  I’d like that._

 

~00Q~

 

James had bought himself a tatty old car prior to moving south and on his second day off he used it to drive to a small fishing village called Brixham.  He parked his car in the centre of the town and then donned his walking boots.  The wind was high and biting as he followed the coastal path up to Berry Head.  There were the remains of an old fort up there and he wandered through them before heading out to the end of the point.  The sea raged almost sixty meters below him, stirred up by the high wind.  As he watched the waves crashing he tried not to think about Q.

The whole of the previous day, as he’d fastidiously cleaned the little flat that he rented in nearby Bovey Tracey, he found himself going back to think about Q time and time again.  He’d thought that once he was out of the influence of Q’s low-level psychic abilities he might stop obsessing over him as he seemed to have been doing pretty much non-stop over the previous week.  That hadn’t been the case though.  If anything, it had been even worse.  He’d actually had to physically stop himself from changing his plans and going into work that morning, electing to come to the coast to try to blow his mental cobwebs away instead.

The problem was, Q was so at odds with how James thought he would be.  James had expected him to be shark-like, grey and dull like the Sirens who’s attacked him, instead he was slender and brightly coloured.  He’d expected him to be surely and morose but instead he was quick to smile and play with Moneypenny, flashing his tail at her more than once that James had seen.  And then there had been the incident in the tank.  He could have attacked James, easily overpowered him and drowned him… or finished the job of tearing out James’s throat.  Instead he had kissed him, no doubt to shock James out his panic, and then he used the moment to communicate with him, to help James to understand that he was about to hurt him terribly.  At every turn Q had reached out to James, offering friendship.

James’s fingers closed around the railings that separated him from the edge of the cliff and wondered what he’d got himself into.  It was no wonder that Eve was so protective of her charge.  How many Mer had she seen die at Boothroyd’s hands?  What an awful predicament for a marine biologist to be in.  She hadn’t been able to help them but neither could she bring herself to turn her back on what was happening.  He felt so sorry for her.

Almost as sorry as he felt for Q.  When he’d first walked into the tank room, a little over two weeks before, if someone had put a gun in his hand and told him to kill Q he would have ended him without a hint of remorse.  Now though…  He gazed down at the grey, swirling water and tried to reconcile his hatred for Sirens with his… affection?  Was he really beginning to like the creature?  He thought he was but he didn’t know if it was a natural feeling or the effect that Q was having on him.  Was Q manipulating him?  He shook his head.  Was this how the previous Siren escaped?  By beguiling the security guard into helping him?  Boothroyd had replaced all the staff that had been working there at the time but what if it was happening again?  What if Q was affecting them all?  Moneypenny, Tanner and Conroy all seemed to like him.  Was this just part of Q’s plan?

Rain began to fall, waking James from his thoughts.  He turned up his collar and trudged back down the hill back towards Brixham, deciding to treat himself to a couple of pints in one of the quaint harbourside pubs and then a fish and chip supper before heading home.  The following day he would return to work and start to do some digging.

 

~00Q~

 

James got into work at eight o’clock as usual.  After completing his early morning rounds, he settled down in his little office and to start to go through the CCTV logs.

There were six cameras in all in the facility.  The tank room and the access room were each covered, as were three points in the hallways.  Finally, there was the camera in the lift.  James sat poised, his fingers hovering over the keyboard, debating.  The previous test subject had escaped on the night of the thirteenth of April according to the calendar that hung above his desk.  He pondered which camera feed he should start with and finally plumped for the access room.  He went to seven in the evening and set the video playing at eight times the normal speed.  He then sat back, sipping on the cup of coffee that he’d made for himself and looking for any sign of movement.  He sat there for almost three quarters of an hour, at the end of which he’d seen nothing.  That was impossible.  That room was the only way out for the creature.  He went back to his starting point and started again, playing it at four times the normal speed.

As the recording passed one o'clock in the morning he saw it.  It was the tiniest detail.  One moment the room looked as it had for the previous four hours.  Then there was a shudder and suddenly there was a sheen to part of the metal plating that hadn’t been there before.  James sat forward and rewound the image and then watched it at normal speed before freezing the screen.  If he wasn’t very much mistaken, there were wet marks.  Someone had gone into the room and removed the Siren, splashing the floor as they did so.  They must have come into the control room afterwards and deleted part of the recording as they left.  Feeling like he was onto something, James went onto the feed for the main hallway around the same time.  Just as he suspected, there was another blip showing a minute’s feed had been removed.  He went to the last feed.  Boothroyd had said that they’d escaped through the tunnel.  He imagined that this feed would have a section missing too, proving that the Siren was helped.  He set the feed to play at the moment that the main hallway’s section was missing and watched for the blip.

There wasn’t one.

Instead he watched as a tall man, dressed all in black, walked briskly up the hallway and out of sight.  James blinked and tried to work out what he’d just seen.  He rewound it and watched again.  The man was broad-shouldered but slim.  James got the impression that he must have been six foot tall at least.  James paused the image of him and found that he could make out a badge on his sleeve.  He was wearing a security guard’s jacket, much like James’s own.  What the hell was the security guard doing walking down that corridor in the middle of the night at the exact time that the Siren was escaping?  He rewound it and watched it one more time, letting it run this time.  There was nothing else.  Why hadn’t the person helping the Siren wiped this image?  The guard must have been in on it and had opened the abandoned door to make it look like the Siren had escaped that way but had actually found a way to sneak it out of the front door.

James shook his head and sat back, cradling his now-cold cup of coffee to his chest.  The logistics of getting an aquatic creature out of the facility like that… he just couldn’t wrap his head around it.  He idly watched the next half an hour of video and then fast forwarded it through.

The guard didn’t come back down the hallway.

James called into Boothroyd’s office up in the main building while he was on his rounds later that day and asked him about it.

“The man you saw was Parker.  I had him fired immediately afterwards of course.  He must have altered the feeds as you say but forgot to remove that part.  He denied it all.  Said he’d been at home alone, fast asleep at the time.  Said it wasn’t him in the video.  Bit of a pathetic lie when we could plainly see it was him.  Tall, dark-haired, there was no-one else it could have been.  We’ve upgraded most of our security systems on the rooms to include palm-recognition now – there’s no way anyone could pull the same stunt now and not leave definitive proof.”

“He wasn’t the last guard here though, was he?”

“No.  That would have been Simpson, Parker’s replacement.  Not a bad sort but he got a better offer from MI6… that was when you were hired.”

“I see.”

“Bond, what’s this all about?”

“Nothing Sir.  Just a bit intrigued really…”

“Not really a lot to do down there, eh?”

James grinned.

“No.  I just can’t understand how you could smuggle something that large with gills out of there…”

“It’s enough of a trial to get them in there.” Boothroyd chuckled. “That’s something I may have to go over with you in the near future by the way.”

“Oh?”

“It looks as though we may need a new specimen.  Q’s rather outliving his usefulness I’m afraid.”

“Sir?”

“There’s only so many tests we can run until we need ‘fresh blood’ as it were.  MI6 are in the process of obtaining me another Siren as we speak.  I should imagine that we might have it as early as next week.”

“And then what will happen to Q?”

“Oh, we’ll dispose of him.”

James felt his blood run cold.

“Dispose of him?”

“Dissect him most likely.”  Boothroyd put down the paper he’d been reading and examined him over the top of his glasses. “What’s the matter Bond?  Not getting fond of the little bastard, are you?”

James laughed and hoped to God that it sounded natural.

“No.  Not at all.  Why would I?”  He glanced at his watch.  “Look at the time.” He said, “ I really must finish my rounds.”

He thanked Boothroyd before leaving his office and went to the lift.  His mind was reeling by the time he punched in the code to the lift’s access panel.  Why was he feeling like this?  Why was he feeling sick to the stomach at the thought of the death of a creature that, not two weeks before, he would have gleefully killed himself?  He shook his head as the lift descended.  He just couldn’t understand it.  Once at the lowest floor he went straight back to his office.

He saw on the monitor that Eve and Billy were both in the tank room, talking to Q.  He looked agitated, his tail flashing as Eve signed at him.  James couldn’t see what she was saying but whatever it was, it had obviously upset Q.  James was on his feet before he realised that he intended to run to the tank room to see if he could help.  He took a shaky breath and forced himself to sit down.

“Why do I feel the way I do about you Q?”  James muttered to himself.  “I hated Sirens.  Loathed them.  They terrified me.  Disgusted me.  And yet I meet you and in no time…”  He shook his head and then rested it on the palms of his hands.  “I don’t understand any of this.”

He glanced up to see Eve press her palms and then her forehead onto the glass of the tank.  Q swam up to her gracefully and pressed his lips to the glass as if kissing her forehead.  He then backed off and, when he was sure that Eve was watching him, he signed to her;

_We knew this day would come._

And

_I’m not afraid._

James realised with a sinking heart that Eve had just told Q what Boothroyd told him.  That he was being replaced.

That his time was up.

 

~00Q~

 

James had to make an effort to re-watch the previous night’s security feeds now.  It had been almost a week since Boothroyd had told James that Q was to be replaced.  

Replaced.

A paltry word to describe the horror that awaited Q.  Ever since then James had preferred to watching the live feed from the tank room whenever he could, telling himself that seeing Q coiled in the bottom of his tank, was purely him doing his job.  When he did watch the night time feeds, it was always of the tank itself.  James could see how restless Q was.  Tossing and turning, his long elegant tail thrashing when his nightmares gripped him.  At other times Q just sat, listlessly running his fingers over the walls of his tank.  James wished there was something he could do to alleviate Q’s distress but it was hopeless.  He was struggling to sleep himself, every night dreaming of having to be the one to kill Q or restrain him as Boothroyd administered a lethal injection.  His previous nightmares about being ambushed by Sirens had been replaced with an overwhelming fear of being the one to hold Q as he died.  It wasn’t helping, he knew it wasn’t, but for the first time in his life he simply didn’t know what to do.

He noticed that it was almost time for his afternoon rounds so he sat up and prepared to stop the playback.  As his finger hovered over the mouse the image suddenly shifted imperceptibly.  One second Q was curled up in the corner of his tank, apparently asleep, the next…

“His hand moved.” James muttered.  He rewound the image and watched again, paying attention to the tiny timestamp at the top of the screen.  At the moment that the image shifted, so did the time.  “There’s twenty-three minutes missing…”.  He called up the corresponding time on the access room’s feed.  Starting a minute after the break in the tank room’s feed, there was a jump of twenty-one minutes… and when time resumed the floor was wet.  “You got out of your tank.”  James said.  “Why did you get out of your tank?”

Feeling like he was onto something, James forgot about his rounds and started to check the recordings from the previous nights…

An hour later he had a list of times written down neatly on his notepad.

Starting on the first night after Boothroyd had announced that Q was being replaced, there was a blank in the footage at around one o’clock in the morning.  The next night it was at half-past one, the next night at midnight.  In fact, every night since the announcement there had been a jump of around twenty to twenty-five minutes.  Someone must have been helping Q, but to do what?  Why let him out for so short a time?  What good would that do?  There was only one thing for it.  James would have to see for himself.

He left the facility at five o’clock, as he did most days, and headed to a local pub where he knew he could get himself a decent meal.  After eating he went back to his little flat and laid down on his bed.  He didn’t expect to sleep but he set his alarm clock just in case.  Much to his surprise, he did manage to doze for a few hours before his alarm woke him at eleven.

He wanted to make sure that he could slip back into the facility unseen so instead of driving he walked.  It was just over two and a half miles so it didn’t take him long.  Within forty minutes he was in the lift, descending into The Pit.  Once there he debated his next move.  He couldn’t wait in his office, there was a chance that whoever it was interfering with Q might head there first to disable the CCTV.  Instead he headed up the long corridor to the blast door, positioning himself far enough up so that the camera at its entrance wouldn’t pick him up.  Once he was sure he wouldn’t be seen he hunkered down to wait.

The corridor was gloomy, it was only lit with emergency lighting, even in the daytime.  James relaxed against the wall and closed his eyes.

_Fear… hope…. fear…. hope…._

It took a while but James realised that it was Q’s emotions that he was sensing.  James stilled himself, resisting the urge to reach out mentally and seek him out.  He wasn’t sure what would happen if Q knew he was there.  Q’s thoughts were jumbled.  A confusing mess of hope and despair.  James wondered what had got him so agitated.  Was it the anticipation of getting out of his tank again?

At a couple of minutes to midnight James heard the lift mechanism activate.  Someone was coming.  He slowed his breathing and listened hard.  He’d positioned himself with his good ear towards The Pit and now he strained to hear voices.  He heard murmuring but he was too far away to make anything out.  There was the sound of a door opening.  It scraped slightly, telling James it was the one to the tank room.  He then heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.  Hoping that he was right, and that the second person wasn’t going to suddenly turn around to go to the CCTV room, James sprang to his feet.  He hurried up the corridor as quietly as he could.  He saw that the door to the tank room was indeed ajar but passed it quickly.  If there was something going on with Q, it would be in the access room.

As he got halfway up the stairs he realised he could hear sobbing.  It was a terrible sound that tore at James, like the plaintive cry of a child or an animal in distress.  It was coupled with the feeling that Q was in pain and it made James want to run towards it.  Instead he held his nerve, walking silently and wishing that he’d thought to bring a weapon to use on the person that was obviously hurting Q so badly.  Under the sounds and feelings of distress he could hear the low soothing sound of someone trying to reassure Q.   Gritting his teeth with a snarl, James reached the door and, without hesitation, shoved it open and strode in, determined to help the young Mer.

Whatever he was going to do, whatever he was going to say, fled as he took in the scene in front of him.

The hatch was open and Q was lying beside it on the metal deck with Moneypenny behind him.  She was kneeling, supporting his upper body as he writhed in agony.  His collar lay beside them, it’s cruel hooks glinting in the low light.  James took another step forward, his mouth hanging open, unable to comprehend just what exactly it was that he was seeing.  It couldn’t be… and yet… it was.

Q had _legs_.

  
  
  


 


	5. The Plan

 

 

James’s first instinct was to run.  Raise the alarm.  Get away from Q now that he didn’t have the silencing collar around his neck.  He might have even taken have a step backwards before Q’s eyes flicked up to him, looking so hopeful through his pain.  He reached out to him and James saw that he was still chained by the wrist.

_“James…please.”_

His voice was husky, rough from disuse, but was like a soothing oil covering James’s rising panic.  Instead of running, James hesitated.

“What… is this?”

Q looked as if he was about to answer but then another spasm wracked him and James finally saw what was happening.  He did indeed have legs, but only to a point.  They were shifting, changing shape.  It was as if his tail had morphed but the process wasn’t complete.  His legs were still connected by a membrane but this appeared to be painfully tearing every time he shifted.  There was a hint of scales still visible on his skin and James’s confused brain tried to reconcile the fact that moments before Q had been the creature in the tank, swimming and breathing through gills.  Q shifted and the section of membrane between his ankles pulled apart.  He sobbed as it obviously hurt him.

“Good.  That’s so good.”  Eve said tenderly, cradling Q’s head to her chest.  “It’s happening much quicker tonight…”  Q shook his head and licked his top lip, whining as he shifted again.  “That’s it sweetheart, keep moving your legs like that.”

“What’s wrong with him?”  James had never seen anything like it before but he was pretty sure it wasn’t working the way that it should.

Eve waited until after another spasm wracked Q and passed before she acknowledged James.

“Hand me that blanket.”

He saw what looked like an army blanket folded beside them.  He quickly picked it up and shook it out before helping Eve to wrap it round Q.  Q clutched at the edge of it with one hand and smiled up at him, his eyes still glassy with pain.  He reached out and took James’s hand with the other. It was cold. The gold flecks in his eyes still glittered as he watched him but they seemed to be lessening, giving way to the deepest, most luxuriant green.  He spasmed again, his grip tightening, before he managed to speak again.

_“Thank you…”_

“Hush, you.” Eve smiled and then kissed his forehead. “Rest your voice.  Save your strength.”

His eyes slid shut as she looked back up at James.

“Mers are dual natured.”  She began.  He nodded.

“Q told me that.”  He said.

“And yet you don’t seem to understand what that really means.” She said.  She took off her lilac-tinted glasses.

“Fucking hell…” James breathed.  He must have looked comical as Eve burst out laughing.

“Most people just tell me I have beautiful eyes…”

They were.  Breathtakingly beautiful.  Her eyes were the darkest brown, flecked through with pure gold, exactly like Q’s…

“You’re one of them.”

“Yes, but I don’t swim any more.”

“Why not?”

“She met me.”  Tanner came into the room.  He must have been the other person James heard back when he was lurking in the corridor.  “I pleaded with her not to give up her aquatic side but as you might have guessed by now, my wife is one of the most delightfully stubborn women that you’d ever wish to meet.”  He walked over and sat down cross-legged beside Eve.  He reached out to stroke Q’s damp hair.  “How’s Towomia doing?”

“Towomia?”  James asked as Eve lifted the blanket to check on his legs.

“It’s his given name.” She commented. She replaced the blanket and cuddled Q in as he shuddered again.  “He’s almost there.  His lower legs have fully disconnected.  Won’t be long now.”

“Is… does this mean he’ll be human now?”

“No,” Eve said gently, “Although it would take some doctor to notice that he isn’t when he’s properly in terrestrial form.  Our most closely-guarded secret is that most of us can transform between aquatic and terrestrial forms at will.  It’s our greatest defence mechanism.  How many times do you think a group of humans have hunted Mers, only to lose them near land?”

“I… I can’t believe it.”  James said, astonished.

He watched as Q reached up to grip onto the front of the jumper that Eve was wearing.  He cried out again, a short loud burst of sound, as he arched his back.  With a sob he finally settled, shivering.  Eve moved the blanket off his lower body again and smiled.  James looked to see that his legs had finally parted.  They looked normal now except for the red stripes that ran up the inside of each one.  Eve gently ran he fingers up one of his thigh’s, following the thick, scar-like line.

“That’s it sweetheart.  All done now.  So much quicker than yesterday.  Less than ten minutes.”

James let go of his hand as Q was laid flat and Tanner moved over to kneel between his ankles.

“Ready for this?”

Q nodded as Bill lifted his right leg and started to push his knee up to his chest.  Eve watched them for a moment and then turned back to talk to James.

“Transformations should be seamless, they should take about thirty seconds and they should be painless.”

“Should?”  James queried.

Eve paused, considering.  She reached over and picked up Q’s collar, turning it over in her hands.  Eventually she spoke.

“Imagine being kidnapped.  Your attacker puts you in a room and ties you to a chair.  You stay in that chair for six months.  Never standing, never moving.  One day you realise that they’ve forgotten to tie you and the door is open.  What would you do?”

“I’d get the hell out of there.”  James said.

“Would you?  Think about it.”

James hesitated before realising what she meant.

“No,” He said quietly, “I suppose not.  My legs probably wouldn’t work properly after being sat down for so long…”

“Boothroyd is a clever man and he invented these collars to silence the Mers that he holds captive.  He realised that by hooking something into the primary gills he could stop them from vocalising but he didn’t realise that he’s been stopping them from transforming too.  The first thing that happens when we change, physiologically speaking, is the gills close, allowing the lung function to take over.  If a Mer tried to transform wearing one of these things, it would tear out their throats.  Q was captured in a fishing boats nets almost six months ago.  He was unwilling to change in front of the fishermen and give away what he was capable of.  Ever since he’s been constantly watched, been trapped in his aquatic form. The longer he’s been captive the harder the change has been. When he was brought here and collared, it made transformation seem even more impossible.  He couldn't even transform enough to get his lungs working and breath the air.”

“Thank God you were here to help.  You’re not here by coincidence, are you?” James asked gently.  “How many have you seen die?”

Eve looked over to watch as Tanner finished manipulating Q’s legs and helped him to sit up.

“Three.” She said sadly.  “We came here after one escaped.  The first two we worked with were sick when they got here.  ‘P’ was healthy and I thought we might be able to save her but Boothroyd had her killed before I could get her out.”

James worked back through the alphabet.

“So the one that escaped must have been…”

“M.  He was a local capture.  He had an accident in Plymouth Sound while out swimming, he was clipped by a speedboat, knocked unconscious and woke up in here.  He was fit, in his prime and had been regularly transforming.  More importantly, he was mad as all hell.  Within three days he’d worked out the security measures, within a week he’d managed to escape.”

“I’m impressed…” James admitted.  Eve smiled.

“Boothroyd made a mistake.  Before M he always ended up with weaker specimens.  The elderly, the infirm… the young…” She looked at Q.

“What made M so special?”

“He’s a clan leader.  An alpha, if you like.  One of the strongest Mers you could ever wish to meet.”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“Sort of.  Even though I’m land-based now, I sought him out when I moved to Plymouth – it was only polite, it is his territory after all.  When he escaped he contacted me.  Told me to keep an eye out to see if either me or Bill could find out exactly what was going on here.  We couldn’t believe it when we saw that there were jobs being advertised.  We both went for them and got them.  It was like it was meant to be.”

“So… the security footage that showed the guard apparently walking down the blast door corridor?”

Eve grinned.

“That was M escaping.  Boothroyd has never worked out what was really happening…”

“Eve.  I think he’s ready to go back in.”

Tanner’s voice cut through their conversation.  Q was sitting, leaning up against him now.  Eve stood up and went over to the hatch.

“Tomorrow, if you can transform within five minutes, we’ll try to get you walking.”

Q nodded and then looked to James.

 _“Will you tell him?”_ Q’s voice was still quiet and hoarse as if the damage that the collar’s hooks had done had survived his transformation.   _“Boothroyd?”_

James considered him.  He looked almost teenaged.  It was strange to think that he was in his thirties.  The blanket had slipped down off his shoulders, revealing his thin pale chest and his hair was messy and tousled.  James wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen anyone look lovelier.  As soon as the the thought crossed his mind, Q gave him a little smile and blushed.  Despite everything, it made James chuckle to himself.  He got up and went over to him. Kneeling down he held out his hand.  Q hesitated and then one arm emerged from under the blanket to slide his hand over James’s palm.  James gently closed his fingers over Q’s; they felt quite warm now..

“I know how I feel about Sirens.  They were my worst nightmare and when I first came here you terrified me.” James examined the slim delicate hand in his.  It was pink, human-looking, with no hint of webbing.  “But I’m also beginning to understand how I feel about you now, I think.”  Their eyes met and James felt a frisson of desire for the young Mer.  He shook his head, wondering at himself.  “The feelings that I’m having for you might not be natural.  It might just be some weird kind of effect that your psychic abilities are having on me.  What I do know is that I would be heartbroken if anything happened to you.  You don’t deserve to be experimented on and then discarded.  Nobody deserves that.  No. I won’t tell Boothroyd and if I can help you, I will.”

Q smiled again.  His grin was wide and James saw with some delight that the double row of serrated shark-like fangs that had so unnerved him had been replaced with a single row of event, white teeth.  Eve stroked Q’s hair to get his attention and then took away the blanket.  Seeing that Tanner meant to pick Q up, James beat him to it, lifting his thin frame easily.

“You need to eat more.”  James commented as he realised how light he was.  Q sniggered and rested his head on James’s shoulder for a moment before James got down on his knees to put him back into the tank.  “Now, no pulling me in.  I haven’t got my wetsuit on this time.”

Q held onto the edge of the metal deck for a moment and shivered as he lowered himself in.

“Christ, this water’s bloody cold when I don’t have my tail.”

“You need to change back now.” Eve said softly.  She turned to James.  “It’s a lot quicker changing back.  It’ll take Q less than a minute.  His body is more used to being in this form at the moment.”

Q nodded and immediately let his fingers slip off the deck.  James’s heart lurched with the instinct to grab him and stop him from falling before realising that he was probably safe.  Q drifted down to the bottom of the tank, disappearing into the gloom of the murky water.  James stayed on his knees and watched as the drift of bubbles that Q expelled finally petered out.  There was stillness for a good minute before he saw movement and Q surged back up.  He easily caught the edge of the floor again but this time he was all Mer.  His golden eyes glittered and his skin had taken on its greenish hue again.  James saw that the webbing was back between his fingers.

“My collar please, Eymorplennay.”  His voice sounded different, other-wordly, and it sent shivers up James’s spine.

“I hate this.” She commented as she laid on her belly beside James, hanging over the side of the grating.  James could see now that Q’s gills were back.  She lined up the hooks to the largest of them, the two furthest forward.  “Hold on tight sweetheart.”  She twisted her wrists and slid in the hooks.  Q didn’t make a sound but James saw the way that his fingers momentarily tightened on the side of the deck.  She quickly snapped shut the collar and re-padlocked it.  Once it was in place he seemed to swallow painfully before pulling himself up to kiss her cheek.

 _Thank you,_ he mouthed.

His disappeared down into the tank again and then Tanner replaced the hatch before the three of them left the room together.  James then found himself standing in the corridor with Eve while Bill went to doctor the CCTV feeds in his office.

“What did he call you?  Before you put his collar back on him?”

“Eymorplennay.  It’s my given name.  If we decide to live a terrestrial life we adopt a human name which tends to be similar.  I chose Eve Moneypenny.  It’s pretty, don’t you think?”

James shook his head, laughing, wondering if his night could get any stranger.

“Does Q have a human name?”

“He does.  It’s Tom Marlow.”

“He had a life, _has_ a life, doesn’t he?”  James said, realisation dawning, “He’s not just some wild animal, roaming the seas like a dolphin or something?  When he said he was from Gibraltar…?”

“He’s an IT consultant there.”

“Jesus Christ.” James said, running his hand over his face.  “Boothroyd’s been treating them like animals…”  He shook his head.

“Boothroyd is an ignorant fuck.”  Tanner interjected bluntly, coming out of the CCTV room.  “He’s no scientist.  He breaks things, destroys them, in his attempt to understand them.  We just have to hope that time is on our side with Q.”

They walked towards the lift.

“How so?”

“Boothroyd’s been making noises about replacing him but Q’s not ready to walk yet and until he can it’s not safe to get him out of here.  We need him to be able to get himself out.”

“Why does he have to do it alone?  Why can’t one of you help him?”

Eve and Bill exchanged glances as the lift arrived and they got in.

“We all decided the best plan would be if we could find a way to make sure that we were with Boothroyd the exact moment that Q escapes.  Bill has talked him through the CCTV set up so he can disable the whole lot when he goes.  Boothroyd hopefully won’t have a clue how he managed to disappear, just like when M got out.”  Said Eve.  “Look, the thing with M escaping was a huge cock-up as far as this place goes.  The higher-ups in London would be furious if it happened again.  Especially if Boothroyd can’t say conclusively how it happened.  He’s on his last warning.  We think that if we can get Q to escape then this place will get shut down but…”

“But you want the chance to keep working here just in case it doesn’t.”

“Give the man a gold star…” Eve said.  She looked at her watch.  “It’s almost two.  Need a lift?”

James almost declined as the lift reached the top and they began to walk to the exit, but then he noticed that it had started to rain.

“That would be lovely.”

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Connection

 

 

The next morning, as James was sipping his mid-morning cup of coffee, Eve came into his little office.

“Bond.  Just the man.  I wonder if I might ask a favour?”

He looked up from the inspection log that he was disinterestedly filling in.

“Anything for a pretty lady.”

She shook her head at him.

“Creep.”  She commented with a half-smile but then her face fell into a serious expression.  “Listen, it’s Bill.  He’s been called away.”

“Oh?”

“His father has been taken ill… well, he’s been ill for some time but his doctors think that this might be it for him.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“It’s just… he was going to take me out tonight - _later_ tonight – and, well, I was rather looking forward to it and I wondered if you would like to come with me instead.”

James immediately understood what she meant.  She wanted to visit Q again and wanted James with her. Before the events and revelations of the night before, James might have thought it odd that she suddenly trusted him so easily.  But knowing now that she had the same ability to sense emotion as Q… he wasn’t sure he could hide his true intentions from her if he tried.  She knew that James had been honest when he told Q that he wanted to help him.

“Shall I pick you up at eight?”

 

~00Q~

 

They did actually go out.

There was a quaint pub nestled in a small village high up on the moor.  The Rugglestone Inn was small and cosy and the bar staff greeted Eve by name when they saw her.  James instantly felt relaxed and they found the table that Eve had reserved, away from the bar and anyone who might overhear them.  Once they had decided on what food to have Eve went to the bar to order it, returning with two pints of local ale.

James watched her as she sat back down.  He’d thought her attractive when he first met her but now that he knew what she was…  it was obvious really, now he knew that such a thing was possible.  Her lilac-tinted glasses did a good job of disguising the golden flecks in her eyes but they were still visible, as were the faint traces of the gill-lines that ran up the sides of her neck.  In point of fact, her alien nature did nothing to reduce her attractiveness.  In many ways, it made her even more alluring.  She smiled at him as he idly wondered what colour her tail had been.

“Red, mainly.”  She said.

He felt his face warm.  She must have…

“I don’t need to be psychic to read your mind James.” She said quietly, laughing.  “Any aspect of it.  I can see the way that you’re looking at me… and my tail was red with green tones.”

“But you don’t…”

“Not any more, no.  It’s normal for us to choose one life eventually… as we age it gets harder to shift… but I made the choice early.”

“Because of Bill.”  James ventured.

“Because of Bill.” She said.  “I knew he was the one I wanted to be with by the end of our first conversation.  That kind of instant attraction is common for our kind but it can be difficult for humans to take.  It helped that we met while Bill was on holiday.  We exchanged addresses and after Billy went home to England we stayed in touch by countless letters and phone calls.  He confessed to me almost a year later that he couldn’t stop thinking about me.  That he loved me”

“What do you mean by ‘that kind of attraction’?”  James queried.

“It’s like…” she paused and took a demure sip of her pint as she seemed to consider her next words, “…  it’s like when you first met Q… you were terrified, no?”

James shook his head, embarrassed to remember how he’d freaked out.

“Don’t remind me.”

“Your terror was probably in part due to Q.”

“I’m damn sure it was!”  James exclaimed, laughing uncomfortably at the memory of his reaction.

“No, what I mean is… you were scared… which he picked up on and kind of… _fed back_ to you, making you feel even more scared.”

“So when you feel love for someone…” James mused.

“It can be very intense.” She admitted.  “If Billy had lived locally to me… if he had stayed nearby… I’m not sure I could have ever trusted how he truly felt about me.  I knew that I loved him but…”

“You weren’t sure if what he felt wasn’t just an echo of your own feelings.”

“Exactly!  I like that idea.  That it would have been like an echo.”

“Is that why I like Q so much?” James wondered out loud without thinking.  “Is it because he likes me for some reason?”

Eve watched him and he suddenly felt his cheeks warm up again as she seemed to scrutinise him.

“You do, don’t you?”  She said softly as she smiled.  “Oh James, that’s adorable.  And here was I thinking that we’d just appealed to your noble side.”

“I’m not sure I have one of those.”  He admitted.

“I think you do.”  She replied.  “Otherwise Q wouldn’t have been so sweet on you in the first place.”

James wasn’t sure what to say to that so Eve pressed on, changing the subject slightly.

“The last guard… ugh.  He loathed Sirens and that had an awful detrimental effect on Q’s mental well-being when he first arrived.  On all of them really.  That bastard was brutal, deliberately twisting their collars when he restrained them.  O died as a result of it.  Her gills became infected after he tore them.  Boothroyd refused to try to treat her.  She didn’t stand a chance.”

“I’m so sorry.”  James said quietly, horrified.

“Not your fault.”  Eve said simply.  “I’m not sure that she would have lasted long in any case.  She was pining for her mate.  Mourning him.  He’d been killed by the same nets that captured her.  She didn’t want to live without him.”

“Jesus…”

“This is why Q’s escape is so important.  Not least because he’s one of the sweetest people that you’ll ever meet but because with him gone we have a real chance of shutting that godforsaken place down once and for all.  It’s why it’s so important that we help Q to walk again.  We’ve been helping him to shift since the night he first arrived but it’s only the past week that he’s been able to truly breathe comfortably and last night was just the second time that he’d been able to separate his legs all the way.  Now he needs to build up the strength in his legs and get the hell out of there.”

“Or he’ll simply be killed and replaced and Boothroyd will continue to try to find a way to wipe out every Mer on the planet.”  James said quietly.

“Is that what he told you he was doing?”  Eve asked scornfully.  “Creating some kind of weapon or virus to kill us all?  He’s not.  He’s trying to find a way to enslave us.  To use us as weapons.”

James’s mouth fell open.   _Enslaved?_  He’d seen slavery amongst humans during his years on special ops.  It was a terrible and brutal thing.  He felt a wash of unease as he realised what he’d been a part of.

“Boothroyd told you exactly what you needed to hear to get you working for him.”  Eve continued more gently.  “He knew you’d been damaged by your experiences and he used that knowledge to manipulate you.  The man’s a coward and he wanted you on his side.”

James shook his head, staring down into his pint glass.  It was true.  All of it.  He’d been played by Boothroyd.  He must have read James’s file and used the knowledge of his PTSD and the struggles he’d had adjusting to civilian life to lure him in...  Had he really been so blind?

“His plan has backfired though, hasn’t it?”  She asked.  James didn’t answer so she leaned over and took one of his hands, shaking him out of his thoughts.  “Hasn’t it?” She asked more earnestly.

He looked up then and studied her again.  He took in her open face and her pretty smile.  The faint gill-marks on her neck and the way that her eyes still seemed to glitter despite the lilac lenses that disguised the flecks of gold.  He tried to imagine Boothroyd finding out what she was, enslaving _her_ with a cruel collar around her neck...  giving her to some faceless military man.  How many ‘Sirens’ would die when they wouldn’t sing for their captors simply because they weren’t Sirens at all but innocent Mers?  He shivered at the thought of it.  He used his free hand to trail his fingers over the back of hers.

“Yes.” He said simply.

 

~00Q~

 

They got back into the facility with no trouble and made their way down into The Pit.  As they descended in the lift Eve gave James some instructions as well as a key and a rolled-up army blanket.

“Make sure that you take Q’s collar off him before he tries to change.  Lie on the grating like I did last night and take it off him while he’s still swimming.  Then move back; he can get himself out easily enough but you’ll need to be ready to help him once he starts to transform.  The grating has sharp edges and he might cut himself if he thrashes about on it.  I’ll head down to the tank room, tell him you’re waiting and then go to your office to sort out the cameras and security logs.  I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

The lift doors opened and with a wink she was gone.

James headed up the stairs to the access room and used the palm scanner to let himself in.  He quickly unlocked the access hatch and folded back the large covers.  He unzipped and stripped off the cardigan he was wearing and tossed it aside before lying down on the grating as Eve had the night before.

He looked down into the dark murky water and tried to suppress a feeling of unease.  The incident with the attacking Sirens had made him fearful of deep water, something he would have said was impossible before the attack.  He tried to push aside his irrational fear but it began to grow.   _What if Q wasn’t alone?_ the irrational part of his mind asked, _what if he surges up, claws at the ready, teeth bared, ready to tear, rend, bite and kill?_  James shivered and had to stop himself from throwing himself away from the edge when he saw a flash of bright scales followed by the sight of Q swimming up to him.  He wasn’t attacking though, he was smiling.  His eye’s half-closed with affection as he recognised James.

Q broke the surface smoothly, easily propelling himself up and out of the water far enough to catch hold of the edge of the grating, either side of where James lay.  Without giving him time to react, Q pulled himself up and kissed him.  It was the second time that their lips had met and it was just as gentle as the first time.  James barely had time to realise what had happened though, before Q dropped his head, allowing James to see the padlock on the back of his collar.  Suddenly remembering the key James quickly took it out of his pocket and undid it.  He placed the padlock on the grating beside him and then gently grasped both sides of the collar as he’d seen Eve do.  Q seemed to twist and then he was free, slipping back down under the water.  James barely lost sight of him before he surged back up, this time placing his hands flat on the deck to heave himself up out of the water.  He began to wriggle and James could see he was trying to get away from the edge so he got up onto his knees to help him.

As James slipped his hand in under Q’s tail it seemed that his bright scales looked less vibrant out in the air.  He thought at first it was simply from being out of the magnifying effects of the water but he then realised that they were already fading, losing colour as they seemed to almost dissolve into Q’s pale skin.  James placed Q carefully onto the floor next to the blanket Eve had given him and watched as the Mer shuddered.  His gills undulated madly as if gasping for water before suddenly closing, sealing shut and fading into the same faint lines that Eve had.  He seemed to suffocate briefly before suddenly drawing a small amount of air into his lungs.  He choked and then breathed in again before exhaling with a whoosh.  He coughed and then, almost comically, yawned, a huge, jaw-cracking inhale.  His chest expanded and the greenish tinge to his skin started to fade, replaced by a healthy, pinkish glow as his breathing settled.  He slumped back into James’s arms.

James watched, fascinated, as Q’s tail morphed into legs in front of his eyes.  The scales continued to pale, turning flesh-coloured before beginning to fade into smooth skin.  The fine tendrils of his fins seemed to shrivel, drawing up before forming into feet and toes while the long smooth trunk of his tail changed and began to bunch and bend as his hips, knees and ankles formed.  Every change seemed to cause Q pain but he bore them all with remarkably little complaint, only crying out when his skeleton shifted.   His legs stayed connected until the process was almost complete, the fine membrane which joined them straining between Q’s forming legs.

The Mer turned his head into James’s chest, gripping his forearm with a no longer webbed hand as he suddenly whimpered.  James saw why and winced in sympathy.  The membrane between his feet had just torn apart.  This was the point that James had burst into the room the night before.  The point that Q had seemed in agony.  He wasn’t sure, but it all seemed to be going a little easier for Q now.

No sooner had James thought that then Q cried out, spasming as his lower legs abruptly parted, before starting to shiver.  James grabbed the blanket and went to put it around Q’s shoulders but he shook his head.

“Scratches… itchy…” He gasped quietly, “Please don’t…”

James huffed out a laugh before reaching over to pick up his cardigan.  He shook it out and wrapped it around Q.

“Fussy.”  He commented.

Q smiled up at him then and laughed and James’s heart felt like it skipped a beat.  Facially, he looked almost entirely human now, his gill-lines and delicately fanned ears faded to normality.  His lips parted and James saw again how white and perfectly even his teeth looked.  There was no hint of the shark-like grin.  His hair had begun to dry and it was already trying to curl.  It looked as soft as down and James unthinkingly reached up to stroke it.  It was every bit as soft as it looked. Q turned his face so that James’s gently probing fingers could touch his skin.  His fingers stroked over the line of his jaw and then he cupped his face, stroking his thumb over his cheekbone.  Q shuddered again and James looked down to see that his legs had finally parted.  His genitals, which had been recessed into his body when in his aquatic form now rested on his thigh.  But for the fine traces of scales still visible in a few places, Q’s transformation was complete.  He looked completely human.  It was fascinating.

Without a word James stroked down, over Q’s narrow chest and onto his bony hip.  He was still slim but in his current form it was more obvious that he was almost emaciated.  He felt a sudden wave of pity for the young creature.   There was a thin line of scales that hadn’t quite faded, running around Q’s waist below his navel and James traced it with his fingers, trailing them through the riot of dark wiry hair that hadn’t been there a few minutes before.  Q shivered and turned his head to nuzzle into James’s chest again. James saw the way Q’s cock twitched at his touch before the Mer reached down to gently still his hand.

“I need to stretch my legs.”  He said quietly.

James nodded, swallowing hard and pulled his hand away.

“Of course.  Tell me what I need to do.”  He knelt up, coughing nervously to cover his embarrassment, as Q leaned back, resting his elbows on the grating.  He watched James as he gently grabbed one of Q’s feet.  James was mortified.  He was supposed to be helping Q, not copping a feel.  And what in hell’s name was he doing anyway?  Q was a man, a male Mer, and James had never been attracted to another man in his life.  James should have been trying to help save him not trying to get off with him.  He…

“James?”

Q’s quietly spoken word snapped James out of his confusion.  James might not have considered himself gay but his breath still caught as he looked up and realised just how beautiful Q was.  Q smiled again and this time James could almost feel Q’s affection as a physical warmth.

“It’s okay.”

James relaxed and let go of the breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.  Q was right.  It was all going to be okay.  James was suddenly certain of that just as he was suddenly certain that he would destroy anyone who tried to hurt Q.  He smiled at him as he started to ease Q’s leg back towards his chest, just as he’d seen Tanner do the night before.  Q winced but stayed relaxed as James flexed his legs for him.  The red ‘scars’ down his inner thighs had almost disappeared by the time James had finished and Q sat up.

“Will you help me to stand please?”

James had just pulled Q to his feet and was holding him up by his elbows as he wobbled adorably, when Eve came in.  She took one look at Q and then started to clap, laughing as she came over to them.

“Oh Towomia!”  She exclaimed.  “Look at you!  You clever thing!”  She watched as Q tried to take a step and then his legs buckled.

“Maybe not tonight…” He quipped as James helped him back down to a sitting position.

“How do they feel now?”  She asked as she ran her hands over his inner thigh.  He seemed totally unfazed by either his nudity or her busy fingers as she investigated the faded lines there.

“Good.  Another night or two and I might be able to walk far enough.  I reckon I completely transformed in under seven minutes tonight.  It’ll be under five by tomorrow, just like we wanted.  It hurt a lot less too.”

“Brilliant.”  Eve grinned.  Then her face fell.  “Are you ready to go back in now?”

Q shoulders seemed to slump.

“I want to get out of here.”  He said, darkly.

“I know darling, but you need to be able to do it yourself.  You know why.”

Q nodded and glanced back towards the tank.

“I know.”  He said sadly.  “I just…”  He looked at James.  “Thank you for helping me.”

James didn’t know what to say.  He wanted to tell Q he was welcome but it seemed like such a trite, small thing.  He wanted to tell him how he felt but he wasn’t sure of that himself.  He wanted to say a million things and he might have even settled on one of them but when he opened his mouth to speak, Eve suddenly stood up.

“I’ve just remembered!” She announced.  “The thing!  I have to um… do a thing.  Very important!”

James and Q turned to watch her go and then looked at each other… and simultaneously burst out laughing.

“That wasn’t awfully subtle.”  Q commented.  He seemed to hesitate for a moment and then he leaned forward, snuggling into James.  James froze for a moment and then wrapped his arms around Q, marvelling at the warmth he felt from him.  He tucked his face into the side of his neck and closed his eyes as he ran his fingers up into his hair.  There was nothing sexual about their closeness and it was just what James needed at that moment.  The physical contact along with the feeling of emotional connection.  It was divine and James felt himself relax into their embrace.  Too soon though, Q pulled away.

“Thank you, I needed that.  It’s been so long since I’ve been held like that.”  He said, with a bashful smile. “I think I’m ready to go back into that godawful tank now.”

James smiled back at Q, before letting him go.  He helped him over to the edge of the opening before taking his cardigan from him.  With a final glance over his shoulder at James, Q shuffled off the edge and down into the dark water.  James waited, counting the air bubbles until they finally ran out.  Moments later Q surged back up, aquatic and alien once more.  James held out his collar and as gently as he could he slipped the hooks into Q’s gills before snapping it shut and padlocking it.

“Not much longer.”  He murmured as Q reached up with a cool hand to stroke his face.  “Be brave.”

With a final longing smile Q slipped back down below the surface of the water.

 

~00Q~

 

James was due to have his day off the next day but before he and Eve parted ways he arranged to meet her again the following evening.  He went back to his little flat feeling lighter than he had in a good long while, since way before the attack if he was honest.  He was still confused, of that there was no doubt, but it had morphed into the type of confusion he remembered from his youth, when he had a face full of spots and had just discovered the opposite sex.  Q wasn’t the opposite sex but the physical attraction that James had felt towards him as he was transforming was impossible to deny anymore.

He felt too wired to sleep so he made himself a cup of decaffeinated coffee and fetched himself a pad of paper and his watercolour pencils.  He sat for an hour sketching Q, trying to remember the delicacies of his fins, the definition of his musculature and the softness of the expression on his face as he’d swum up to greet him earlier that night.  After an hour James wasn’t sure he could ever convey Q accurately in one of his drawings but he felt calmer, more rested.  As he got up to go to bed he gazed at the drawing one last time, shuddering at the thought of him trapped in that lonely, murky tank.  He would save him.  He had to.

It was past three in the morning when James finally crawled into bed but it was a long time before sleep came.  Instead he lay and thought about Q.  About the softness of his hair, the way the golden flecks in his eyes shone in the light and the way he had held him – clinging to him as if he needed it like air.  Eventually, after tossing and turning for over an hour, James gave into temptation and took himself in hand.  He stroked his cock to hardness as he thought about Q’s slim body, wondering what it would be like to pleasure him.  To touch him, kiss and caress him until he came.  He wondered what it would have been like to kiss the line of scales beneath his navel.  To breathe in his scent and feel him shiver as his lips trailed down to…

James arched his back as he came, stroking himself through a powerful orgasm.  Afterwards, after he had calmed down and wiped the cooling semen from his hand and belly, he was finally able to fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.

 

 

 

  
  



	7. The End

 

 

James didn’t use his mobile phone much as a rule and tended to leave it turned off for most of the day but the next morning, when he woke, he checked it straight away.  He’d exchanged numbers with Eve before they’d parted and he’d promised to stay easy to contact.  ‘P’ had been euthanised with very little warning and knowing that Boothroyd was actively trying to obtain a replacement for Q, James knew that they might need to move at a moment’s notice.

Knowing that something was possible and expecting it to happen though, were two entirely different things.  James wasn’t surprised to see that there weren’t any missed calls or messages from Moneypenny so he set it back down on his bedside table while he went to complete his morning routine.  First, breakfast; three rashers of grilled bacon, two scrambled eggs and a slice of wholegrain toast.  He made a pot of coffee and drank the first mug almost scaldingly hot along with his food.  Then he went to the bathroom and showered before returning to the kitchen to finish his coffee and read the day’s headlines on his laptop.

As he sat and tried to read about what was going on in the world he was distracted by thoughts of Q and his people.  He eventually gave up reading about Brexit and searched the web for information on Mers instead.  He found very few positive results.  Most searches led to information on Sirens.  The deadliness of Sirens, the warning signs of Sirens, how to save yourself from Sirens… how to kill Sirens.  The articles went on and on.  James wondered why it was that everything was so negative about Mers, why they had such bad press when there were people like Q and Eve in the world.  Surely, they weren’t the only ones?  There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of peaceful Mers on the planet.  Why stay so secretive and let the world believe they were all like Sirens?  

He found few photographs of Mers.  Some were of them dead, strung up like trophies by Siren hunters, but others showed them smiling or playing in the water.  James wondered if these photos had been taken by family members.  Individuals brave enough to share photos of their loved ones.  What was it Moneypenny had said?  That their ability to transform was their greatest defence mechanism.  Their most closely guarded secret.  Why do that?  Why not show the world that they were intelligent creatures?  James couldn’t understand it but then he wasn’t Mer.  

They’d had to endure centuries of persecution at the hands of humans.  Maybe this secrecy and the bad reputation was worth the security that came with it.  Still wondering, James finished his coffee and went to the bedroom to finish getting dressed.  It was getting on for lunchtime and he wanted to go to the local town to pick up some groceries before coming back home and begin drawing again.  As he neared the bed his phone lit up and James realised his error. He must have inadvertently set it to silent and his voicemail service was calling.  He’d missed a call from Eve.  With a mild feeling of dread, he picked up the message.  The feeling increased a thousand-fold when he heard her frightened, tearful tone.

“ _ James… Where are you?  It’s today.  I don’t know how soon but they’ve captured another one and Boothroyd’s getting him delivered tomorrow.  Oh God.  I don’t know what to do!  I don't think I can carry Q out of here and he can’t walk yet and…”   _ There was a sob and she paused as if catching her breath. _ “Please James.  Billy’s father died in the night and he can’t get here in time and Boothroyd might kill Q at any moment and…”   _ There was the sound of muffling, as if she’d suddenly shoved her phone in her pocket, and then the line went dead.  James rang off and checked the timestamp.  The message had come an hour before, just about the time he’d left the room to get his breakfast.  Cursing himself for being so stupid and not taking the phone with him into the kitchen, James swung into action.

Maybe it was his years of training or maybe it was James’s overwhelming desire to help Q but either way he was dressed and ready to leave his flat in under ten minutes.  He dressed soberly in a black, high-necked jumper and a pair of inky-black jeans.  He wore his old standard issue boots and over the top he wore his mackintosh, into the pockets of which he tucked away his phone, wallet and car keys.  During his days in the Navy, dexterity was a valuable trait in his line of work.  As a result, all of the divers involved in bomb disposal had regular friendly competitions to see who could pick locks the fastest.  James had hunted out his old lock-picks the night before.  Moneypenny had the key to the padlock on Q’s collar but he’d never seen her take off the cuff which encircled his wrist.  He slipped the little bundle of instruments into another of the coat’s pockets, just in case he needed them. 

He jumped into the car and drove to the facility, trying to think of his next move, wondering what to say to Boothroyd if he saw him.  It was almost one o’clock, way too late for James to pretend that he was simply turning up the work.  He decided to try for a simple ruse, carefully making sure that his phone was still set to silent before getting out of the car.  As he suspected he bumped straight into Boothroyd as he walked in through the main doors.

“Bond!  You’re eager.  I assumed you were having a day off today.”

James smiled in what he hoped was an easy manner, trying to remain calm.  If Q’s low-level psychic interference affected Boothroyd in the same way that it affected James, he didn’t want to alert the man to the fact that anything was off.

“It is.” He said smoothly. “Forgot my bloody phone though.  Must be in my office somewhere.  Can’t do without my daily game of solitaire!”

Boothroyd nodded and looked like he was about to say something when his eyes narrowed.

“You seem upset.  Agitated.  Are you sure that’s all it is?”

James sighed and then said quietly.

“I need to make a call.  I received an email this morning.  Someone very close to me doesn’t have a lot of time left…”

It was almost the truth and James allowed the full force of his anger and disappointment run free.  He just hoped that Boothroyd wouldn’t realise that his anger was directed at him.

Boothroyd seemed to hesitate before reaching out and patting James’s arm.

“Sorry to hear that old chap.  Listen, as it happens I was going to ask you to come in tomorrow.  We’re installing the new Siren - R is one her way to us from Jersey as we speak – but take all the time you need.  Go and visit your friend if you’d like.”

“Oh?” James replied, “what about Q?”

Boothroyd looked at his watch.

“I put in a special requisition to Vauxhall.  They’re sending a courier down this morning with the stuff I need to euthanise it.  Should be here any minute.”

James’s blood ran cold.

“I’ll just grab my phone and get out of your hair then.”  He remarked.  “Unless you need a hand…?”

He tried to sound casual but inside his guts were trying to twist with horror.  Boothroyd must not have noticed or maybe just misunderstood the emotion that James was desperately trying to contain.  He smiled.

“No need.  We use a dart gun.  There’s no need to restrain it.  You get off.”

James nodded and, not trusting himself to speak again, he headed for the lift.  Once inside with the doors closed he let out a whoosh of breath and his head seemed to swim for a second.  Straightening back up and staring straight ahead he took a calming breath and employed the same technique that he had on every mission he’d ever undertaken; he pushed aside all emotion and focused on the task at hand. 

The lift pinged to a halt and James strode out.  Grabbing the fire extinguisher which hung from the wall next to it, he carefully laid down over the threshold, preventing the doors from closing and the lift ascending again.  He then strode into the tank room to find Eve talking to Q.  She was crying and looked up in shock as James bore down on her.

“Don’t say a word to me.  Either of you.”  He said quietly as he lifted his hand so it was out of view of the camera in the corner behind him.  He signed ‘trust me’.  Q nodded imperceptibly as James started to pace.  “Eve, you’re going to tell Boothroyd that I threatened you.  That I sounded insane.  You’re going to tell him that I was talking about Q like he was a lover.  That I wanted to kill all of you for threatening him.”  James threw his hands up in the air like he was angry.  “Leave all the cameras as they are.  The only way you’ll be kept on here is if Boothroyd thinks you tried to stop me.  When I turn to leave, grab my wrist.  Pull on it.  I’ll push you away.”

“Knock me out.”  Eve said quietly, barely moving her lips.  James stopped, unsure he’d just heard her correctly.

“Did you just say; ‘knock me out’?”  James asked.

She nodded and James hesitated.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”  Eve said nothing, staring at him defiantly.  “But you need to keep working here.  Fuck it.  Do I have to?”  Still she stared.  He threw his hands up again, genuinely exasperated this time, “OK.  Fine.  When I get to the blast door, is it unlocked?”  She nodded again.  “Then where do I go?”

She didn’t answer him but as he watched she turned over one of her hands that was down by her side.  In amongst the pleats of her skirt he saw that she had tucked her thumb under her closed fingers, her little finger pressing into her palm.

Sign language.  The letter M.

“He knows?  Is he on his way here?  Will he find us?”

She nodded again.

“Wish us luck.”

There was a faintest flicker of a smile and then James turned to go.  He’d gone no more than two steps before Eve suddenly landed on his back.  She must have launched herself at him.  She tried to get him into a head lock, clawing at his face with her nails as she whispered fiercely into his ear.

“You bloody well save him James!  Or I’ll be doing this for real!”

For the briefest moment James thought he might laugh but then Eve bit his ear and he swung into action, reacting on instinct.  He grabbed her arm and flipped her, sending her crashing to the ground.  Not giving her time to react he clocked her neatly on the side of her jaw, knocking her unconscious.  He quickly checked her pulse and breathing before stepping over her and running out to the corridor.  Timing was everything now.  He raced up to the access room and used the palm scanner to gain entry.  As he crossed to the centre of the room he saw that Q was already at the surface waiting for him.  James quickly opened the hatch and lay down.

“Drop your head.” He commanded, pulling out his lock picks.  Examining the padlock, he began to speak in a low voice, hoping again that the cameras wouldn’t pick up what he was saying.  “No sense in letting Boothroyd know there’s a copy of his key to your collar.  I’m going to pick the padlock on this and the cuff as quickly as I can.  Once you’re out of the water I’ll wrap you in my coat and carry you out.  It’s imperative that you don’t start to change before I get you past the last camera in the corridor to the blast door.  That might take me two minutes.  Can you hold onto your tail for that long?”  The padlock suddenly snapped open and James dropped it into the bottom of the tank.  He unlatched the collar and held it steady while Q wriggled out of it.  He coughed before replying;

“I can if I hold my breath.”  Q said quietly.  “It won’t be easy but I’ll try.”

“Thank you.  Give me your wrist. I’ll pick this one too.”   

Q did as he was told and waited until that padlock was open too.  It joined its mate at the bottom of the tank and Q watched as James carefully removed the cuff.  “OK.  Up you come.” 

Q slipped down into the tank and then surged up, using his hands to push himself out of the tank.  James immediately took off his coat and wrapped it around Q.  Picking him up bridal-style he hurried out of the room and down the stairs.  As he rushed past the lift shaft he became aware of banging from the top and wondered if Boothroyd had realised what had happened.  If he had, it was too late to get to them from that angle.  The more immediate danger lay from the other end of the long corridor to the blast door.  If Boothroyd knew where the tunnel ended, he might jump into his car and rush to intercept them.  James picked up his pace.  He wouldn’t allow him to do that.  Q whimpered and shifted in his arms and James hitched him up closer to his chest. 

“Just a few seconds longer.”  James reassured him.  “Hold on, please.”  He glanced up and saw the fixed camera up ahead.  He started to run.  “Just hold on…  OK, now!”  As soon as he was clear of it Q let out a huge gasping breath, spasming in James’s arms as his transformation began properly.  It wasn’t ideal.  James could tell that it was hurting Q to be changing in his arms but he couldn’t run the risk of putting him down and letting him lie on the floor until his change was complete.  They had to get out of there.  The longer they took, the more likely it would be that Boothroyd could intercept them.  “I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.” He said as Q spasmed again and clutched at him.  The tail over James’s arm was feeling more and more like legs and James dreaded them starting to part while Q was being jostled.  “We have to get out of here…”  Q cried out and then sobbed quietly.

“Don’t…” He said tiredly, looping a cold hand up around James’s neck  “… don’t worry.  I’ll be OK…”

The corridor suddenly began to darken as they reached a section where the lights had failed.  James cursed their luck and his own lack of a torch.  There were caves beyond the door and they would most likely be dark.  He started to slow down.

“James?”

“I didn’t bring a torch.  I think there might be one on my phone though…”

“Don’t worry.  I can see in very little light, even in my terrestrial form.  I can guide you.”  Q shivered and James wondered if he was starting to feel the cold.  He gently hitched him up as his head lolled onto James’s shoulder and he sobbed again.  “I’m sorry… I wish I’d had more time… I could have got myself out.”

“Hush.  It’s OK.”

“It’s not though.” Q said.  “What will you do?  They’ll hunt you down.  I can hide.  I can stay human. Or go back to the ocean… You… they’ll find you…” 

“I don’t care.”  James said.  He was beginning to get out of breath so he chose his words carefully.  “Let them find me.  I’ll tell them I was under your spell.”

“What if they don’t believe you?  They might put you in prison.”

James slowed down as he spotted the door ahead in the gloom.

“Let them.” He repeated flatly.  “I’d happily spend the rest of my life in prison knowing you were safe.”  James looked down when he felt Q’s fingers trail across his jaw.  He looked down and smiled.  “It won’t come to that though.  I promise.”

They finally reached the blast door and James saw that it was standing open.  Slowing down, he went into the darkness of the cave beyond.  James blinked in the gloom before his eyes adjusted and he realised he could just make out a railing to one side.  He set his hip to it and used it to guide him as he walked cautiously forward.  Q was noticeably trembling now.  James thought that his transformation might be complete but that meant that instead of being in pain Q was fully human now and feeling the effects of being mostly naked in the cold of the cave.  Pausing for a moment James carefully set him down.

“What are you doing?” Q asked quietly.  James stripped off his jumper, leaving himself in just a t-shirt, and then quickly helped Q to slip it on.

“There’s no sense in me saving you from the tank if you’re just going to freeze to death.” He replied.  He helped Q to pull the jumper down over his bum before putting the coat on him properly and wrapping it around him.  “Better?”

“Yes.  Lots.”

James went to pick him up again but as he put his arms around him he felt Q tense up.

“Oh fuck.  Oh God, please no.”  He said quietly.

“What is it?”

“I can hear him.  Sense him.  Boothroyd.  He’s in the front of the cave.  Susan’s with him.  Oh God James, what are we going to do?”

James thought fast.

“You say you can see in the dark.  How well?”

“We’re used to swimming in deep water… underwater caves...  We have exceptional low-light vision.  I can make out the walls of this cave.”

James looked around himself.  He could see bugger all.

“Good.  Do you think you could crawl?  Tuck yourself away in a corner?”

“Yes, but…”

“Then do it.  Now.  I’ll distract Boothroyd, tell him you’re dead and try to lead him away.  M escaped from here once, he should be able to find his way back here.  Can you use your ability to… I don’t know… call out to him psychically?”

“I’ve never met him but I might be able to…” Q sounded dubious.

“Good.”  James heard the skitter of loose stones ahead of them and the faintest glimmer of a torch.  “Now go!”  James whispered urgently.  “Hide!  Be safe…”

Before James could stand up Q reached out and grabbed the front of his t-shirt.  He drew him in and kissed him softly.  James paused for a moment, lost in the soft press of Q’s lips.  They were so warm, so unlike the cool kisses they’d shared when Q was in his aquatic form.  It only lasted a second and then Q pulled back to whisper against his lips.

“You be safe too.  Please.”  

James nodded before straightening up.  He set his hand to the rail and then strode down the path to meet Boothroyd.  He carried on for another hundred yards, winding his way past low sections and jutting boulders before coming face-to-face with Boothroyd and Doctor Conroy.  Susan was holding the torch as Boothroyd had his hands full.  In one hand he held what looked like a pneumatic dart gun, and in the other, a Browning pistol.  James froze when he saw them, quickly calculating his odds of getting out of there in one piece.

“You’re too late.” He said quietly.  “Towomia is dead.  He died in my arms.”

“How touching. ”  Boothroyd sneered, raising the pistol.  “Towomia?  Is that what it called itself?  No matter.  You saved me the trouble of killing it but I’ll trouble you for it’s corpse thank you.”

“It did matter.”  James replied.  “It mattered an awful lot.  To him.  To his family.”

“Vermin.”  Boothroyd said bluntly.  “Lab rats, the lot of them.”

“Is that what you thought?” James asked gently, turning to Susan who was looking shocked.  “Did you think Q was no better than a lab rat?  Didn’t you ever sit and speak with him?  Watch him play with Moneypenny?  See his face light up when Bill gave him something sweet as a treat?  Because I did and I can tell you, he deserved so much more than either of you were prepared to give him.”

The woman seemed to hesitate for a moment but older man snorted and raised the Browning again, levelling it at James’s chest.

“Oh please, spare me the liberal, bleeding heart, codswallop!  I want that thing’s body!”

James raised his head until he was standing proud.

“No.  You don’t get to lay your filthy hands on him again.  Even in death.”

Boothroyd gesticulated his annoyance and James took the opportunity to leap into action.  He sprang forward, grabbing the hand that held the pistol and jerking it upright.  It went off with a shockingly loud retort but Boothroyd kept his grip on it.  He snarled and started to fight back, wrestling to lower the gun again.  James was determined but Boothroyd started to struggle like a madman taking him by surprise.  He shoved him backwards, hoping to trip him but at the last moment he realised his mistake.

There was the dull pop of the pneumatic gun firing followed by an excruciating pain in his left thigh.  A numbness rapidly spread up the side of his body, down his leg and across his groin which sent him crashing to the ground.  As he looked up Boothroyd waggled the dart gun at him mockingly.

“And there was me thinking that her Majesty’s Navy only took the best!” He laughed,  “You idiot!  Thanks to you I didn’t need that neurotoxin for the animal.  It was engineered for their benefit but I would imagine it would have a pretty nasty effect on a human.  So much for your great plan Commander Bond.  I’m not sure what you were trying to achieve, but I’m pretty sure that you’ve just failed…”

James’s head began to swim and he tried to speak. It felt like a tight band suddenly tightened around his chest, leaving him unable to even breath.  As his vision faded he saw someone else step up behind Boothroyd.  He’d brought reinforcements.  Of course he had.  They would spread out.  Sweep the cave. Find Q.  As he slipped into unconsciousness James realised what Boothroyd had said was true.

He had failed.

 

 

  
  
  



	8. The Siren Sings

 

 

 

James awoke to find himself in a single bed.  He looked about himself blearily, confused beyond measure.  The room was pink.  Little girl pink.  There were frills on the gingham curtains which were closed against bright sunlight.  There was a pink fake fur rug on the floor, a pile of assorted teddies and dolls stared at him from the chair across the room and the duvet cover was…

“Is that The Little Mermaid?” James muttered to himself.

“My daughter’s favourite.”  A tall, distinguished- looking man pushed his way into the room carrying two mugs.  “This is her room.  She insisted that the nice man that saved Tom should stay in here while he got better.”

“Q… Towomia…”  James struggled to sit up but fell back onto the pillows when a sharp pain stabbed through his thigh.  The man set down the mugs on the small bedside cabinet and then bent to help James sit up.

“Easy there.  The neurotoxin that Boothroyd shot you full of was engineered for Mers but it still gave you one hell of a wallop.  If it hadn’t been for Susan, I’m not sure you’d have lived to tell the tale.”

“Susan?”

“She was horrified that Boothroyd tried to kill you.  Even more so when she recognised me after I’d knocked the bastard out and she realised the full implications of what they’d been doing.”

“You’re M.”  James said, suddenly understanding that he was the man he’d seen standing behind Boothroyd in the cave.

“I was.  For a short while at least.” The Mer smiled and stuck his hand out to shake James’s.  His grip was strong and warm.  “Gareth Mallory.  How do you do?  I would introduce myself properly and tell you my given name but I’ve never met the human yet who could pronounce it.”

James smiled back, already liking the Mer Chief.

“So where is he?  Tom?  Can I see him?”

“I’m afraid not.  He’s not here.”

James felt suddenly deflated as Mallory handed him one of the mugs.  He took a sip of the coffee within; it was black and sweet and so good.

“I own a yacht charter company here in Plymouth” Mallory explained, “It just so happened that a client of mine had need of a yacht in Fuengirola.  Perfect timing really.  My employees were able to take Tom with them.  They’re going to drop him off in Gibraltar; take him home.  They sailed yesterday.”

James watched as the Mer sat on the end of the small bed.  He had a feeling that Mallory wasn’t telling him the whole story.  The Mer frowned slightly, no doubt sensing James’s dubiousness.

“Alright.  I’ll be truthful; I sent him away.  I had to.”

“Why?” 

“I don’t know you.  You were unconscious when you got here.  Eve and Tom vouched for you but I am a leader to my people and as such I take their safety extremely seriously.  Even a visitor to my clan like Tom.  I sent away my own family the day you got here – my wife and children are visiting with my in-laws undersea – and I simply couldn’t allow Tom to stay here.”

“But why not?”

“He was starting to imprint on you.”

“Imprint?”

“What do you know about the way Mers mate?”

James thought for a moment.

“Only what Eve told me.  She told me about when she and Billy met.”  He took a sip of his coffee, trying to remember exactly how she’d described it.  “She said that falling in love could be very intense for a human…”

“’Falling in love’ is a very human way of looking at it.”  Mallory said.  He rested his own coffee cup on his lap, curling his large hands around it as if warming them.  “When I met my wife I was instantly attracted to her.  I was twenty-two years old… little more than a fingerling really… and she was visiting from a neighbouring clan.  She felt the same attraction towards me and that was it.  We bonded, mated, had fry of our own.  I’ve been with her for sixty-three years and I am as committed to her now as I was the day I met her.”

Mallory smiled to himself but then he frowned.

“Had she not felt the same way, my attraction would have soon passed and I would have waited until the next person came along that I felt that way about.  It is the nature of our people and ensures long and fruitful relationships.  It’s not like that when we feel attraction for humans though.”

“Why?”  James asked, fascinated.

“Our psychic abilities…”  Mallory shrugged, “They can overwhelm a human, affect them to the point that the human, and the Mer for that matter, have no idea if what the human is feeling is real.”

“Or just an echo of what the Mer feels.”  James said quietly, thinking about all the confusion he’d been feeling.  All the longing and attraction he’d been feeling for Q when up to that point in his life he’d never felt that way about another man…”

“In the early days of the relationship it doesn’t matter.  The Mer and the human are both happy but given time the human’s true feelings will always win out.  If they never truly loved the Mer then eventually they will fall out of love… and leave.”

“And the Mer?”  James asked, a slightly sick feeling in his stomach.

“There is nothing more devastating for a Mer to lose his partner, no matter how it happens.”

James thought back to Moneypenny’s story about O.  What was it she’d said?  She’d been pining for her mate.  Mourning him.  She hadn’t wanted to live without him.

“So that’s it.” James said sadly.  “You had to send him away.  I understand.”

“I’m not sure you do totally.”  M said with a smile.  He reached into his pocket and drew out a piece of paper and handed it to him.  James took it and set down his coffee cup on the small chest of drawers next to him so he could look at it properly.  It was a note from Q.

_My dearest saviour,_

_Thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping me to escape from that place.  I was facing a certain death but you gave me my life back.  I can never thank you enough for that._

_M has commanded me to return home and while every part of me wants to stay with you, I know that it is for the best.  I never understood why Eymorplennay chose to give up her tail to be with Billy but now I think I do.  I would do the same for you in a heartbeat if it meant that we could be together.  I would be lying if I said that doesn’t terrify me though.  I felt the confusion and the doubt in you and while I know that I could love you for the rest of my days, I don’t want you to be beguiled by my presence.   I want you to want me too._

_The decision of what happens next is up to you.  If you decide that you don’t want me I will understand.  I am not so far gone that I cannot recover from this but please know that those dark days were made so much sweeter for having met you…_

The letter went on in Q’s messy, flourishing handwriting to list his address in Gibraltar… and his mobile phone number… and his email.  And his Facebook account, and his Tumblr and his Instagram and his LinkedIn.  James huffed out a laugh and realised that he had tears in his eyes as he read the final words;

_I am here… if you want me._

_Towomia x_

He looked up at Mallory who was smiling at him.

“I didn’t send him away to split you up.” He said.  “I did it to give you the chance to be together.”

James smiled back.

“You don’t disapprove of him falling for a damaged old relic like me?  A _man_ like me then?”  He half-joked.

“We don’t have terms like gay or straight in our native vocabulary.” M answered.  "Love is love.  If he loves you he deserves a chance to be with you.  Do me a favour though, stay away from him physically, even if it’s just for a little while.  Contact him though, if you like.  Talk to him before you decide what you want, before you risk breaking his heart.”

James nodded.  It seemed like a good plan.

“Susan thinks it might be another couple of days before you’re fit to leave.  You’re very welcome to stay here in the meantime though.” Mallory continued. “Do you have any idea where you’ll go?”

James shook his head, he hadn’t really considered it.

“Well, I doubt if Boothroyd will have me back.”  He snorted.  “I’ll need to keep a low profile, probably cut off ties with my old team now to prevent MI6 from tracking me down through them again.”

“How are you with boats?”  Mallory asked.

“I was in the Navy for over twenty years.”  James replied dryly.  “How do you think?”

“Only, I could always do with an extra man working for me in my business.”

“Are you offering me a job?”  James asked, surprised.  “I’m sure I have a pretty big target on my back at the moment… I’ll be wanted by the government…That probably doesn’t make me the ideal employee.”

Mallory waved his hand as if dismissing James’s concerns.

“We can soon get around that.  I have contacts.  We can soon get you a new identity.”

“You can do that?”

“James.  Pretty much every single Mer on the planet has got a fake human identity.”  He grinned.  “We know people.”

 

~00Q~

 

James stood at the wheel of the “Spirit of the Sea” and squinted out over the Strait of Gibraltar.  The sun was intense and reflected brightly on the surface of the calm, cornflower blue waves.  He’d been at sea for ten days, single-handedly piloting the 40-foot motor-cruiser to its rendezvous point.  James had been employed as a pilot for Mallory for almost seven months under the name Richard Stirling and he couldn’t help but smile when he’d seen the details of his latest job.

_Collection point:  Rendezvous at the following co-ordinates ten nautical miles off the coast of Rosia Bay, Gibraltar…_

_Client:  Mr Tom Marlow._

_Rental duration:  Four weeks._

Tom Marlow.

It had been less than a fortnight after Q’s escape that James had first phoned him.  James had been nervous, unsure of what to expect but it had gone smoothly.  After a little initial awkwardness, they had chatted like old friends, James listening in delight at Tom’s description of seeing his family again after they’d been convinced he’d been lost. 

Phone calls soon led to Skype calls which became more and more frequent until it was quite usual for them to spend most of their evenings connected and talking, sharing meals or just telling each other about their days.  It was a revelation for James.  He still wasn’t sure that he was gay but neither did he think that it mattered any more.  Tom became his friend.  When he wasn’t talking to him he was thinking about him and if that wasn’t affection then it was damn close.

James had met up with Eve and Billy just before he’d set off.  They’d stayed in touch and James had been thrilled to learn that they’d both been offered work with Boothroyd at MI6’s headquarters at Vauxhall.  The plug had been pulled on the Haytor facility after Q’s escape.

“It’s a good job which no longer involves the containment of live specimens.” Eve had explained, “Boothroyd is as odious as ever but we’re determined to stay close to him. Whatever he tries next, we’ll be there to stop him.”

James smiled to himself as he checked his co-ordinates and killed the engine.  He was here.  He dropped the anchor and went down into the galley to grab himself a cold can of coke before going back on deck.  He settled himself onto one of the sofas and waited.

He’d almost nodded off when he heard it.  Singing.  Otherworldly.  Soothing in a way but also… it was terrible.  He sat up and looked over the side to see a head bobbing about in the water.

_“I love you BAYYYBEEEEEEE and if it’s quite alright I need you BAYYYBEEEEEEE to warm the lonely nights… trust in me when I SAYYYYYYYEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”_

James cracked up laughing, doubled over as he watched Q fling his arms out like an opera singer.  He suddenly stopped as if noticing James’s mirth.

“What’s the matter?  I told you I couldn’t sing!  Permission to come aboard captain?”

“Permission granted.” James called out, before racing to the back of the ship.  Q gave out a little joyful whoop and then, with a flash of his tail, he dived, swimming rapidly just under the surface of the water towards the back of the boat.  James hurried over to meet him and by the time he got there he found Q lying on the lowest deck, where the smaller shuttle boat was moored.  There was a waterproof tote-bag lying on the deck beside him.  He grinned up at him and then trembled.  He transformed in seconds, his tail seemingly melting away into legs.  James understood then how wrong his previous transformations had been; how unnatural for him.  In less than half a minute Q was able to stand and climb the access ladder.  He stopped at the top and smiled at James.

“Hello again.”

“Hello.”

James hesitated.  Now Q was here he didn’t know what to do.  He’d waited for so long to see him again and he was beginning to feel the first brushes of the familiar feeling of their connection trying to take hold once more but he was suddenly unsure.  Did Q still even want him like that?  Did he want Q?  He thought he did but…  Q smiled at him and James swallowed hard.

“Alright?”  He asked, looking like he was trying not to laugh.

“You…” James started.  He coughed and tried again.  “Trousers.  You need some trousers.”

Q seemed to blink at that and then looked down at himself.  He was naked as the day he was born and tanned all over.  The emaciated frame that James remembered had gone, replaced by a lean, healthy body.  James stared at his belly.  There were no traces of scales now.  He was human.  Totally human.  And he was perfect.  James shuddered, overwhelmed by a sudden desire to kiss him from head to foot.  Q’s eyes widened as he picked up on James’s desire and James felt himself blush furiously.

“Why do I need trousers?”  Q asked slowly.  “I’ve never worn them around you before.”

He started to walk towards James.

“I mean.  All that time in that dreadful place I was naked.  In that tank.  When you helped me to transform.  When you saved me…”

They were almost touching now and James took half a step back, his arse connecting with the guardrail behind him.

“I know.” James confessed, “But that was…” He ran out of words when Q tilted his head with a smile and reached out to slip his hands under James’s shirt, stroking his fingers over his waistband. “Oh Jesus…”

“I can’t put trousers on…” Q said innocently, “They’d only get in the way…”

James felt the exhale of the final word on his lips and then they were kissing.  Q tasted of salt water and James sighed as he finally gave in and started to kiss him back, putting his arms around him and drawing him in close.  It was everything that James had been dreaming of.  Q was pliant, soft, bending to James’s desire as he turned them and pressed Q up against the guard rail.  Q used the lower rung to push himself up to sit on the rail and then James was slotting between his spread thighs, his head tilted back to accept more and more kisses.  The noonday sun shone brightly down onto them and James closed his eyes against it, losing himself in Q’s embrace, tasting, touching, smelling him. 

The connection which had been tenuous suddenly strengthened and James heard Q whimper as the feeling of attraction seemed to increase hundred-fold.  There was a strange doubling sensation as James seemed to feel the sun on his naked back and the soft material of his own shirt rub up against the head of his hard cock.  He broke off the kiss and looked down, realising that he was feeling what Q was feeling.  He looked back up and smiled at Q, trying to convey his love for him, his need, his hunger.  Q smiled down at him, his lips ruddy from kissing, his cheeks flushed in his arousal, the sun shining through his hair like a halo. 

“My angel.”  James muttered before drawing Q down to kiss him again.  It was slower this time, their tongues lazily touching as James moved his hands down to cup Q’s buttocks and lift him.  Q wrapped his legs around James’s waist and James carried him inside, taking him to the main stateroom.  When he reached the bed, James went to lay Q down on it but he lowered his legs so he could stand instead.  James was momentarily confused until Q moved his hands to James’s waist and undid his belt buckle.  James blushed again but pulled off his t-shirt as Q’s nimble fingers undid the button and fly on his jeans.  Before James could do anything else Q hooked his thumbs into the waistband of James’s underpants and pushed the whole lot off him, dropping to his knees as the clothing slithered down James’s legs.  Without hesitation Q smoothed his hands up the back of James’s thighs to steady him as he licked the head of his cock.

“Towomia…” James breathed as Q began to slowly fellate him.  He watched as Q ran his tongue over the soft gathering of James’s foreskin and then kissed the tip gently.  James’s hardening cock twitched and Q lost contact with it for a moment.  He looked up then and smiled at James as he used one hand to steady it before kissing it again.  James groaned as Q lightly nipped his foreskin between his lips and tugged playfully before sliding his tongue in under it to press up against his slit. 

James lost track of how long Q took, holding him steady while he concentrated his gentle licks and kisses on the head of his cock, but by the time he took him all in James was rock hard, his foreskin fully retracted.  Q started to bob his head then, taking more and more of him in until James could feel himself in Q's throat with every stroke.  He moaned loudly as he slid his fingers into Q’s hair, holding his head still as he started to move his hips.  Q hummed his approval, both hands returning to the back of James’s thighs to encourage the movement.

He didn’t want to use him, lord knows he didn’t, but the wet warmth of Q’s mouth was heavenly.  The way his tongue rubbed against the undershaft and he kept parting his lips to let cool tendrils of air in to take the heat away when it almost became too much.  Eventually James couldn’t stand it anymore, he was too scared of it all being over before it began, and he pulled away regretfully, leaning over to grab Q’s biceps and gently guide him to his feet.  He climbed onto the bed and Q eagerly went with him, lying down with him and snuggling into his arms.  They kissed again, Q’s mouth now tasting of the saltiness of James’s precome rather than the ocean.

James drew him in close. Relishing the feel of Q’s body pressing against him.  One of his arms was under Q’s neck, his hand pressing on his back, the other he smoothed down onto his hip.  Q’s arm wrapped around his waist and his other hand he pressed onto James’s chest as if feeling his heart beat.  James circled his thumb over the jut of Q’s hipbone but he felt nervous about moving it further.  James could feel the wet head of Q’s arousal pressing into his belly and it was mere inches from his hand but he couldn’t bring himself to touch him there.  Despite everything, despite the way he felt about Q, he was still unsure of taking the final step.  He had no experience of being with a man.  Q smiled as James was kissing him and then suddenly rolled them until he was straddling James.

“Don’t worry my love,” he said soothingly, “I’ll take care of you.”

Q shuffled back until he was over James’s thighs and then leaned over to take him in his mouth again.  This time though he just made him wet, covering his cock with saliva until it was dripping before climbing up and impaling himself on it.  If Q’s mouth was a marvel then his arse was divine, clutching at him as he was squeezed into the tight heat of his body. James yelped and grasped at Q’s thighs in an attempt to stop his movements, certain he was about to come but Q just laughed, reaching over to smartly twist on James’s nipples.  Hard.  James yelped again and then laughed as he realised that his distraction technique had worked.  The sweet crisis had passed, replaced by the exquisite pressure of Q’s body.

He gazed up at him, watching as he started to rock, his belly undulating as he slowly started to ride him.  James relaxed his hands, pressing his palms to Q’s skin and feeling his muscles shift with every stroke.  Q had his eyes closed and his mouth hung open a little.  His head was tilted back, elongating his elegant neck.  The three gill-lines down each side were clearly visible and James wondered if they would fade should Q ever decide to give up his aquatic life.  He hoped he wouldn’t.  Q had looked so beautiful swimming in the clear blue sea, just as he’d thought he would during those dark times at the facility, he couldn’t bear it if Q gave that up for him.  Q’s eyes opened and he smiled down at him.

“This is what I want.  To be with you.” He said quietly and James wondered if he had just read his mind.  He probably had.  If James concentrated he realised he could still sense what Q was feeling.  His arousal… the feeling of being filled… his love for James.  He closed his own eyes for a moment and gasped as the feeling seemed to intensify. He felt Q lean over him, his hips still working, and then they were kissing again.  James wasn’t sure he would ever get enough of Q’s kisses.  He wrapped his arms around Q’s back as he ducked his head down, breathing into the side of James’s neck.  James buried his fingers into the back of Q’s hair, cradling his head as he planted his feet on the bed and pushed up into him.

Q gasped at the sensation and James felt a spike in his arousal.  Smoothing his other hand down over Q’s back he cupped one buttock and did it again. Q clung to James’s shoulders as he started to fuck up into him, making the sweetest noises with every stroke.  James craned up to kiss Q’s shoulder as he reached down to grasp him with both hands, spreading him and holding him still as he upped his pace.  Q cried out, his breath hot and damp on the side of James’s neck before he suddenly sat up again.  He rested his hands on James’s chest and arched his back, pressing his cock to James’s belly with his own so that every one of his thrusts brought him closer to orgasm.

Q wasn’t going to last long, James could tell, but despite that James was still convinced that he would be the one to come first.  He had to do something about that so he let go of one arse cheek to grip Q’s cock instead.  James felt a flurry of excitement at the sensation of feeling Q’s length in his hand.  James had never touched another man’s cock before and it was thrilling to be touching such an intimate part of Q.  He began to stroke, smearing the precome that was drooling from him over his palm and using it to lubricate his shaft.  Q cried out again and dropped his chin to his chest.

“Oh… oh please… I’m going to…”

His stomach muscles jumped and then he was coming, pumping his seed over James’s belly.  A wave of Q’s arousal washed over James as he continued to stroke him, easing his way through it until he couldn’t stand it anymore; he let go of his cock and gripped his hips as he gave three final thrusts and came, filling Q.  Q slumped over him and James simply held him for a moment before rolling him gently and pulling out of him.  They both shivered at the loss of connection as James gathered Q up into his arms.  He gazed up at him sleepily, his gold-flecked eyes glittering in the afternoon sun. 

“I love you.”  James said quietly, realising that it was true.  He did.  He hadn’t been sure in the facility but after their months apart, months in which they had spoken almost every day and Q had become his best friend…  Now that they were together again and their link had been restored, it was such a little thing for his affections to shift to love.  And such a huge thing.  Q chuckled and James realised he must have felt his confusion.  He was about to apologise when Q murmured, “let me”.  He reached up and stroked James’s jaw, much as he had on the day he stole Q away to freedom, and James was filled with such a feeling of affection, devotion and… _confidence_ that he knew that every decision he’d made up to that point had been the right one.

Q’s adoration of him proved that.

 

~00Q~

 

James had finished preparing a light supper for the both of them and then stepped out onto the deck to find Q.  He was standing on the port side, staring out across the water, dressed now in a simple pair of white linen trousers.  They’d spent the whole afternoon making love and strengthening their bond until hunger had forced them from their bed.  James had showered first and then left Q to wash while he cooked. 

James paused and watched Q for a moment, admiring the curve of his back and the way his now-dry hair curled crazily in every direction, before walking over to him and slipping his hands around his waist.  Q immediately leant back into him.  They stood in silence for a moment, James feeling Q’s calm emotions.  Contentment.  Affection.  Hope.  James pressed a kiss to Q’s bare shoulder.

“I made food.  Come and eat.”

“In a moment.”  Q replied.  “I want to watch the sun set.  I forgot, in that place, how truly beautiful it can be.”  His hands covered James’s where they rested on his belly.  “I don’t suppose I ever took the time to appreciate it before.  I was too busy working or rushing around to take the time to appreciate the little things…  I won’t make that mistake again.”

James kissed him again and waited patiently.  Q was right.  It was beautiful.  The setting sun was painting the gentle waves a golden colour.  It reminded him of Q’s eyes.

“We can watch it together every night if you wish.”  He said.  “Mallory said the boat was chartered for a month.  I guess he thought it was time for us to spend some quality time together…”  Q huffed out a laugh and twisted in James’s embrace until he could loop his arms up around his neck.  “What?”

“The reason the boat was chartered for a month was because I chartered it, you idiot.”

“You did?”

“Hmmm.  We have some investigating to do.”

“We do?”

Q smiled up at him, a touch of concern wrinkling his brow.

“You told me about the attack…” James stiffened up and tried to look away but quick as a flash Q pressed his palms to his face and kissed him softly.  “Shhh…”  He soothed. “You told me about the attack and something didn’t make sense…  Your friend Alec.  You said he was taken…”  James nodded as he tried to quell his confusion.  He’d plucked up the courage to tell Q all about the incident some months ago and he knew James hated talking about it so why he was bringing it up again…  “ _That’s_ the part that doesn’t make sense.  If that Siren wanted to kill Alec, why not do it there and then?  Why drag him away?  To drown him?  Alec was armed and dangerous.  The slightest mistake could have been costly.  Why not just kill him?  You know how vicious they can be.  And then it occurred to me.  Our kind feel attraction to potential mates instantly.  What if the Siren attacking him…”

“What if they realised that they wanted him?”  James said quietly.  “What if they took one look at his stupid, handsome face… he always was one for the ladies…”  He looked at Q, searching his face hopefully.  “Do you think he really might still be alive?”

Q shrugged.

“Anything’s possible.  I have no idea where he’d be but I have a few thoughts on where to start.  I thought it might be worth a try….”

James barked out a sudden laugh as he hugged Q in close.  He swayed with him and squeezed his eyes shut as he fought the tears that suddenly threatened to fall.  All those years he had spent just assuming that Alec was dead…  he never once imagined that he might still be alive…  He laughed again and then pulled away from Q just far enough to kiss him breathless.  When they came up for air Q was smiling at him, his golden eyes glittering with mirth.

“Let’s find out, shall we?” James said.

 

_~fin~_

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All done for now. I'm going to leave our boys to head off on adventures...
> 
> Thank you all for reading and thank you especially to RomancebyFaye for the lovely art which started all of this off. Without her I wouldn't have got to meet Mer!Q... x


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